;'ti  -. 


't'(    '^fi  i- 


LIBRARY 

UN  IV    "     TY  OF 

C,,L.F..i.NlA 

SAN  DIEGO 


77Ud,/f:L/. 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 


BOOKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


Religion  and  Medicine    (co-author) 

Abnormal  Psychologt 

The  Meaning  of  Dreams 

What  is  Psychoanalysis? 

The  Hysteria  of  Lady  Macbbtm: 


REPRESSED 
EMOTIONS 


BY 
ISADOR  H'.'  CORIAT,  M.D. 

Author  of  "What  is  Psychoanalysis?" 
'•Abuoriual  Psychology,"  etc. 


NKW  YORK 

BRENTANO'S 

PUI3LISHKUS 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
BRENTANO'S 


AH  rightg  reserved 


TO  MY  WIFE 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  rAQZ 

Introduction       .  1 

'^     The  Meaning  of  Repressed  Emotion     .        7 

II     Repressed  Emotions  in   Primitive  Soci- 
ety         58 

III      Repressed  Emotions  in  Literature  .      .      88 

WV     The    Sublimation    of    Repressed    Emo- 
tions     138 

V     The  Development  of  Psychoanalysis   .    16 1 

VI     The  Depth  of  the  Unconscious      .      .184 

VII     A  Fairy  Tale  from  the  Unconscious     .   194 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 


INTRODUCTION 

Psychology  in  both  its  academic  and 
practical  aspects  is  now  at  the  parting  of  the 
ways  and  the  immediate  future  will  deter- 
mine  whether  it  shall  remain  unproductive 
or  become  an  instrument  of  practical  impor- 
tance in  the  guidance  of  human  interests. 
As  Harvey,  by  training,  a  physician,  dis- 
covered the  circulation  of  the  blood  and  so 
made  modern  physiologj^  possible,  so  Freud, 
also  trained  as  a  physician  has  devised  new 
avenues  of  approach  to  the  understanding 
of  the  hmnan  mind  through  the  conceptions 
of  psychoanalysis. 

There  is  a  strange  but  perfectly  natural 
analog}'  between  the  utterances  of  a  seven- 
teenth century  scientist  and  that  of  a  twenti- 
eth in  the  consciousness  that  each  has  per- 
ceived the  inner  meaning  of  his  great  dis- 
covery. Harvey  states  for  instance, — "But 
what  remains  to  be  said  upon  the  quantity 

[1] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

and  source  of  the  blood  which  thus  passes, 
is  of  so  novel  and  unheard-of  character,  that 
I  not  only  fear  injury  to  myself  from  the 
envy  of  the  few,  but  I  tremble  lest  I  have 
mankind  at  large  for  my  enemies,  so  much 
doth  want  and  custom,  that  become  as  an- 
other nature,  and  doctrine  once  sown  and 
that  hath  struck  deep  root,  and  respect  for 
antiquity  influence  all  men.  Still  the  die  is 
cast,  and  my  trust  is  in  my  love  of  truth,  and 
the  candor  that  inheres  in  cultivated  minds." 
Three  centuries  later  Freud  was  led  to  make 
a  similar  statement,  with  a  scientific  candor 
which  showed  his  profundity  of  mind  and 
his  sincerity  of  purpose.  "In  my  continued 
occupation  with  the  problems  considered 
therein,  for  the  study  of  which  my  practice 
as  a  psychotherapeutist  affords  me  much  op- 
portunity, I  found  nothing  that  would  com- 
pel me  to  change  or  improve  my  ideas.  I 
can  therefore  peacefully  wait  until  the  read- 
er's comprehension  has  risen  to  my  level,  or 

[2] 


INTRODUCTION 

until  an  intelligent  critic  has  pointed  out  to 
me  the  basic  faults  in  my  conception." 

Psychoanalysis  has  shown  that  what  is 
termed  "abnormal"  is  merely  an  exaggera- 
tion of  certain  traits  as  they  manifest  them- 
selves in  everyday  life,  for  instance,  the  for- 
getting  of  familiar  words  has  the  same  mech- 
anism as  the  repressions  in  the  neuroses.  The 
psychoanalytic  concept  of  the  unconscious  is 
unique,  since  it  demonstrates  that  all  the 
facts  of  consciousness  cannot  be  gathered  by 
mere  experimental  introspection  in  the  lab- 
oratory and  that  the  so-called  free  associa- 
tions, on  which  experimental  psychology  has 
laid  so  much  stress,  are  not  free  at  all,  but 
are  definitely  motivated  by  either  antecedent 
experiences  or  unconscious  mechanisms.  It 
is  this  theory  of  psychical  determinism  which 
explains  not  only  the  psychologj"  of  every- 
day life,  l)ut  also  dreams  and  neurotic  mani- 
festations. Various  mental  concepts  such 
as  detcrniinism,  the  displacement  of  the  emo- 

[3] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

tions,  the  dj^namic  pature  of  the  mental  pro- 
cesses, repression,  the  wish  as  the  kej^  to  con- 
scious and  unconscious  thinking,  the  various 
levels  of  the  unconscious,  are  thus  clearly  ex- 
plained for  the  first  time  through  psycho- 
analytic investigation.  Neurotic  symptoms, 
defects  of  the  memory,  shps  of  the  tongue, 
are  not  accidental  trends  but  have  a  definite 
psychological  meaning  and  purpose — but 
this  meaning  and  purpose  can  be  disclosed 
only  through  the  teclinical  devices  of  psycho- 
analysis. 

The  human  mind  is  ever  on  the  alert  to 
protect  itself  through  repression  into  the  un- 
conscious from  painful  memories  and  anx- 
ieties, but  sometimes  this  repression  over- 
steps itself  and  leads  to  all  sorts  of  neurotic 
disturbances,  through  what  is  technically 
termed,  "a  flight  into  disease."  Psycho- 
analysis is  the  method  of  probing  into  these 
unconscious  psychological  settings.  All 
psychoanalysis  leads  to  the  realm  of  the  un- 

[4] 


INTRODUCTION 

conscious,  that  strange  mental  world,  bar- 
baric, primitive,  the  repository  of  repressed 
emotions,  of  a  sort  of  elemental  Titan,  which 
at  times  pushes  the  censorship  aside  and  al- 
lows these  infantile  emotions  to  invade  con- 
sciousness. There  they  are  perceived  like  a 
foreign  body  and  manifest  themselves  in  anx- 
ieties, fears,  depression,  and  compulsive 
thinking.  On  the  contrary,  in  the  uncon- 
scious are  also  precipitated  those  mental 
traits  which  aid  in  the  formation  of  charac- 
ter and  in  the  development  of  social  con- 
sciousness, both  of  which  are  so  important 
for  adjustment  to  the  realities  and  struggles 
of  everyday  life.  It  is  the  task  of  the  psy- 
choanalysis to  investigate  the  origin  of  these 
hidden  repressions  through  the  technical 
methods  which  have  been  devised  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  science. 

Whenever  the  principles  of  psychoanaly- 
sis have  been  applied,  particularly  in  the 
unique    concept    of    unconscious    thinking, 

[5] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

either  to  therapeutics  or  to  cultural  or  social 
problems,  the  various  utilizations  fit  accu- 
rately. Psychoanalysis  has  also  shown  that 
human  motives  cannot  be  explained  by  or- 
dinary superficial  reactions,  but  behind  these 
reactions  lie  repressions  and  resistances  of 
which  the  individual  is  unaware  and  which 
guide  his  thinking  like  an  unknown  force. 
The  unconscious,  emotional  settings  of  all 
minds  are  ahke,  they  differ  only  in  their  con- 
scious rationahzations  and  methods  of  in- 
tellectual approach. 

The  reader  must  bear  in  mind  that  the 
subject  matter  of  this  volume  deals  more 
with  repressed  feelings  than  with  groups  of 
ideas  technically  known  as  complexes. 

Parts  of  Chapter  II,  and  of  Chapters  IV 
and  V,  have  been  taken  with  certain  modifi- 
cations and  additions  from  my  papers  in  the 
Psychoanalytic  Review  and  the  Journal  of 
Abnormal  Psychology. 

ISADOR   H.    CORIAT. 

Boston,  March  1920. 

[6] 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   MEANING  OF   REPRESSED   EMOTIONS 

Emotional  repression  is  the  defense  of 
conscious  thinking  from  mental  processes 
which  are  painful.  This  provides  not  only 
a  method  of  mental  protection,  but  if  it 
fails,  it  may  lead  to  severe  neurotic  dis- 
turbances. In  the  process  of  repression 
there  is  a  continual  conflict  between  the 
primitive  emotions  as  they  exist  in  the  un- 
conscious and  the  more  highly  evolved  hu- 
man impulses  in  consciousness.  The  me- 
chanism of  repression  lies  at  the  root  of 
Freud's  entire  conception  of  the  human 
mind  and  psychoanalysis  cannot  be  under- 
stood unless  the  theory  of  repression  is 
clearly  comprehended.  Repression  accom- 
panies the  individual  at  every  stage  of  men- 

[7] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

tal  development,  from  the  primitive  psyche 
of  the  child  to  the  highly  complex  integra- 
tions of  the  adult  mind. 

In  the  com-se  of  development  of  the  in- 
dividual, certain  powerful  components  of 
the  mental  life,  particularly  referring  to  the 
sexual  impulse,  may  undergo  a  repression. 
Before  this  repression  became  a  social  factor 
it  was  first  an  individual  phenomenon  of 
great  importance.  HTrom  the  earliest  dawn 
of  history,  certain  emotions  were  pushed 
aside  and  psychological  barriers  erected  to 
prevent  them  entering  into  the  field  of  con- 
sciousness. Repression  is  not  suspension  of 
the  forbidden  ideas  or  emotions.  These 
ideas  or  emotions,  although  thrust  into  the 
unconscious,  are  as  specifically  active,  as  full 
of  energy,  as  though  clearly  recognized  in 
conscious  thinking.  These  unconscious 
forces  are  of  great  importance  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  race  or  the  individual. 
For  the  former  they  may  lead  to  all  sorts  of 

[8] 


THE  MEANING 

mental  epidemics  which  from  time  to  time 
sweep  over  society,  for  the  latter,  they  may 
act  as  forms  of  defense  from  painful  ideas 
or  as  sjTnptom  creators  of  a  future  neurosis. 
This  concept  of  emotional  repression  is 
very  important  for  psychoanalysis.  It  leads 
not  only  to  an  understanding  of  the  various 
types  of  neuroses,  and  those  tricks  of  mind 
which  produce  the  forgetting  of  familiar 
words,  but  at  the  same  time  its  social  im- 
portance is  such,  that  civilized  society  would 
rapidly  become  a  chaos  if  it  were  not  for  the 
action  of  individual  repression  in  protecting 
the  human  personality  and  in  erecting  cer- 
tain social  barriers.  Even  among  prmiitive 
tribes  there  exist  certain  religious  and  moral 
prohibitions,  which  are  really  forms  of  in- 
dividual and  social  repression.  The  savage, 
although  he  appears  more  at  ease  than  civ- 
ilized man  and  may  experience  no  sense  of 
shame  in  his  nakedness,  is  yet  enmeshed  by 
certain    tribal    prohibitions    termed   taboos, 

[9] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

which  are  the  oldest  unwritten  code  of  human 
laws. 

Psychoanalysis  has  demonstrated,  not 
only  in  everyday  life,  but  in  the  behavior 
of  subjects  undergoing  psychoanalytic  treat- 
ment of  the  neuroses,  that  all  forgetting, 
with  the  exception  of  forgetting  produced 
by  actual  organic  disease  of  the  brain,  is  due 
to  repression.  The  entire  subject  of  forget- 
ting and  its  motivation  by  emotional  repres- 
sion, can  be  best  understood  by  giving  the 
details  of  a  simple  case  in  which  this  mechan- 
ism was  a  predominating  factor. 

A  young  woman  complained  of  difficulty  in 
remembering  or  recalling  words  with  which 
she  was  completely  familiar.  An  examina- 
tion showed  no  signs  of  organic  disease  of 
the  brain  and  further  enquirj^  into  the  diffi- 
culty disclosed  the  fact  that  there  was  no  ac- 
tual deterioration  of  memory,  but  that  the 
forgotten  words  related  to  specific  anxieties 
and  situations  in  the  patient's  life.     Neither 

[10] 


THE  MEANING 

did  the  forgetting  of  the  word  depend  on  in- 
attention, because  the  more  concentrated  and 
intense  her  attention  for  a  given  fact,  the  less 
able  was  she  to  reproduce  the  word.  In  ad- 
dition the  forgetting  referred  only  to  fa- 
mihar  words.  Sometimes  the  incorrect 
word  would  enter  her  mind  and  remain  there 
in  spite  of  efforts  to  dislodge  it.  An  analy- 
sis of  the  forgetting  of  these  familiar  words 
demonstrated  that  it  was  motivated  by  an 
unconscious  emotional  factor,  the  factor  of 
repression.  Examples  are  the  following: — 
There  was  a  complete  inability  to  recall 
the  phrase  "latent  powers"  but  free  associa- 
tions ^  showed  that  this  forgetfulness  of 
the  phrase  was  closely  linked  up  with  pain- 
ful and  therefore  repressed  memories  of  her 
brother's  former  alcoliolic  habits  when  she 

1  Freud  attributes  to  psychical  events  a  rigorous  deter- 
minum, — that  is,  even  so-called  free  associations  to  a  given 
word  arc  directly  related  in  a  causative  manner  to  the 
inifinl  word.  Of  course  this  connection  is  not  always 
realized  by  the  subject,  as  it  is  so  often  unconscious. 

[11] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

feared  that  the  alcohol  might  ruin  him  men- 
tally and  thus  he  would  fail  to  utilize  what 
was  best  in  him  (his  latent  powers). 

On  another  occasion  she  could  not  recall 
the  word  "accommodator"  (referring  to 
domestic  servants) .  An  analysis  of  the  for- 
getting process  involved,  here  disclosed  the 
fact  that  because  of  some  financial  reverses, 
she  really  did  not  want  an  accommodator  for 
reasons  of  economy.  It  was  her  anxiety 
over  this  latter  which  blocked  the  word  and 
prevented  it  from  reaching  consciousness. 

A  number  of  other  instances  of  forgetting 
were  analyzed  and  as  the  cause  for  the  for- 
getting of  each  word  was  disclosed,  this  word 
was  no  longer  forgotten  and  could  be  recalled 
at  any  time.  The  inability  to  recall  familiar 
words  finally  disappeared.  In  this  case  it 
could  be  shown  that  the  forgetting  of  famil- 
iar words  was  due  to  emotional  factors  and 
not  to  any  actual  deterioration  of  memory. 
This  emotional  factor  was  repression,  which 

[12] 


THE  MEANING 

sidetracked  and  blocked  the  word  and  pre- 
vented it  from  entering  consciousness,  al- 
though the  word  was  fully  conserved  in  the 
unconscious.  It  was  not  the  conservation 
of  the  word  that  was  at  fault,  since  it  was 
completely  stored  up,  but  the  reproduction 
faculty  was  defective,  and  this  defect  of  re- 
production was  produced  by  emotional  re- 
pression,— that  is,  the  apparently  forgotten 
words  were  associated  with  a  disagreeable 
emotion.  Consequently  the  inability  of  rec- 
ollection was  for  the  purpose  of  protecting 
tile  mind  from  this  disagreeable  emotion,  in 
other  words,  the  forgetting  was  a  purposeful 
act  of  defense,  it  was  motivated  by  an  un- 
conscious wish  to  forget. 

In  this  case  for  the  purpose  of  cure,  it  was 
not  necessary  to  analyze  all  the  forgotten 
words,  because  the  removal  of  a  few  repres- 
sions, not  only  released  other  groups  of  re- 
pressions, but  actually  prevented  new  words 
from  being  forgotten.     The  forgotten  words 

[13] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

had  not  vanished,  thej^  were  preserved  in  the 
unconscious;  they  were  merely  sidetracked 
and  could  not  be  recalled  because  of  repres- 
sion. The  repression  was  purposeful,  for 
the  words  were  associated  with  disagreeable 
incidents.  This  is  a  simple  instance  of  the 
action  of  emotional  repression.  In  the  neu- 
roses the  mechanism  is  the  same,  but  more 
complicated,  capable  of  extreme  ramifica- 
tions and  can  only  be  revealed  by  a  long  and 
searching  psychoanalysis. 

Repression  lies  at  the  bottom  of  ordinaiy 
forgetfulness,  it  is  an  inability  to  reproduce 
memories  and  not  an  incapacity  for  storing 
them  up.  Analysis  of  such  conditions  shows 
how  unscientific  are  the  various  methods  de- 
vised for  improving  the  memory.  They  are 
all  based  on  the  erroneous  supposition  that 
a  memory  defect  is  due  to  an  inability  to 
store  up  facts,  the  emotional  factor  of  repro- 
duction being  entirely  disregarded. 

[14] 


THE  MEANING 

Thus  ordinary  forgetiulness  is  not  due  to 
chance,  but  follows  definite  laws.  In  the 
case  given,  there  was  not  only  forgetfulness, 
but  actual  false  recollection,— the  striving 
for  the  escaped  name  brought  substitutive 
names  into  the  mind,  which  were  recognized 
as  false.  The  same  process  which  produced 
the  forgetting  (an  unconscious  wish  to  for- 
o-et),  led  to  the  substitution  (an  unconscious 
wish  to  keep  the  word  hidden). 

This  forgetting  is  motivated  by  repression. 
The  repressed  material  which  side-tracked 
the  word,  prevented  it  from  entering  con- 
sciousness, was  emotional,  as  around  the  ap- 
parently "forgotten"  word  were  crystalhzed 
painful  and  rebellious  feelings. 

When  we  come  to  study  the  mental  de- 
velopment of  an  individual,  as  revealed  to  us 
by  the  psychoanalysis  of  adults  and  those  of 
children  who  develop  abortive  neuroses  early 
in  life,  we  find  that  the  first  repressions  do 
not  begin  until  ab(nit  the  third  year,  and  re- 

[15] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

fer  principally  to  the  primitive  impulses  of 
hunger  and  love.  Then  they  start  with  the 
sense  of  shame,  the  sense  of  pleasure  in  a 
body,  certain  perversions  relating  to  the  ex- 
creta, the  desire  to  run  about  naked  and  to 
become  destructive  to  property.  In  adults 
the  childhood  repressions  appear  only  in 
dreams  because  of  the  strict  censorship  of 
society.  This  explains  the  frequent  non-em- 
barrassment dream  of  being  insufficiently 
clothed  in  company. 
H  The  unconscious  is  made  up  of  repressed 
elements  and  the  beginning  of  the  uncon- 
scious coincides  with  the  beginning  of  repres- 
sion. Therefore  in  very  young  children  the 
dreams,  whose  only  source  is  the  unconscious, 
are  literal  wishes  for  food  and  play,  without 
any  evidence  of  repression. 

This  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of  an 
interesting  question,  academic,  it  is  true,  yet 
fraught  with  the  most  practical  applications, 
namely,  first,  why  is  the  "unconscious"  un- 

[16] 


THE  MEANING 

conscious  i  *  and  secondly,  what  is  the  rela- 
tion of  the  collective  unconscious  of  the  race 
to  the  important  herd  instinct  ? " 

The  best  explanation  of  the  psychology  of 
crowds  can  be  found  in  the  herd  instinct,  that 
is  that  the  collective  unconscious  is  imper- 
sonal. It  is  really  nascent  thought,  which 
has  not  become  crystallized  into  conscious 
action.  The  personal  unconscious,  that  is, 
the  unconscious  of  the  individual  human  be- 
ings, is  a  part  of  this  collective  unconscious 
and  cannot  be  separated  from  it.  This  ex- 
plains why  no  individual  can  be  completely 
emancipated  from  the  crowd  or  from  the 
social  structure  of  society  in  which  he  lives 
and  moves  and  has  his  being.  This  also  ex- 
plains the  so-called  "mental  contagion" 
which  is  so  important  for  collective  opinion. 

Thus  the  herd  instinct  ensures  that  the  be- 

1  See  at  this  point  the  interesting  symposium  by  Nicoll, 
Rivers  and  Jones  "Why  is  the  'Unconscious'  Unconscious?" 
liritith  Journal  of  Psychology— \'o\.    IX,   1918. 

-•  W.  Trotter— "Instincts  of  the  Herd  in  Peace  and 
War"— 1918. 

[17] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

havior  of  the  individual  shall  harmonize  with 
the  community  as  a  whole,  and  determines 
the  ethical  code  of  man  and  his  conduct  and 
opinions.  The  herd  instinct  is,  therefore, 
really  the  collective  unconscious  of  society. 
The  unconscious  mind  has  six  chief  charac- 
teristics, namely: — 

1.  It  is  the  result  of  repression  and  this 
repression  occurs  because  the  unconscious 
mental  processes  are  of  a  character  incom- 
patible with  the  civilized  conscious  person- 
ality. 

2.  It  is  dynamic  in  nature,  for  in  the  un- 
conscious the  most  active  mental  processes 
are  active  and  elaborated.  This  active  striv- 
ing is  of  the  nature  of  wishing  and  these 
wish  impulses  form  the  external  manifesta- 
tions of  the  unconscious. 

3.  It  is  the  repository  of  crude  and  primal 
instincts. 

4.  It  is  infantile  in  character  and  this  in- 

[18] 


THE  MEANING 

fantile  characteristic  persists  throughout  the 
whole  of  life. 

5.  It  is  illogical  and  tends  to  ignore  the 
ordinary  standards  of  life. 

6.  Its  sexual  characteristics  (using  "sex- 
ual" in  the  broad,  psychoanalytic  sense)  are 
predominant  and  as  a  rule,  these  characteris- 
tics manifest  themselves  in  a  symbolized 
rather  than  in  a  literal  form. 

It  is  impossible  to  agree  entirely  with  the 
idea,  that  the  unconscious  embodies  entirely 
the  lower  and  more  brutal  qualities  of  man, 
that  it  is  irrational,  primitive,  savage,  cruel 
and  lacks  individuality  and  self  control. 
Out  of  crowds,  in  war  or  in  revolutions,  there 
have  crystallized  acts  of  sublime  heroism, 
sort  of  sublimations  of  the  unconscious,  and 
this  in  itself  invalidates  the  idea  that  the  un- 
conscious is  the  repository  of  primitive  and 
basal  instincts  alone. 

Concerning  the  origin  of  the  unconscious 

[19] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

it  is  best  to  quote  from  Rank  and  Sachs, 
with  whom  we  are  in  complete  agreement. 
"Our  first  question  will  naturally  concern  the 
origin  of  the  unconscious.  Since  the  uncon- 
scious stands  completely  foreign  and  un- 
known to  the  conscious  personality,  the  first 
impulse  would  be  to  deny  connection  with 
consciousness  in  general.  This  is  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  folk-belief  has  ever  treated 
it.  The  bits  of  the  unconscious  which  were 
visible  in  abnormal  mental  states  passed  as 
proof  of  "being  possessed"  that  is,  they  were 
conceived  as  expressions  of  a  strange  individ- 
ual, of  a  demon,  who  had  taken  possession 
of  the  patient.  We,  who  can  no  longer  rely 
on  such  supernatural  influences  must  seek 
to  explain  the  facts  psychologically.  The 
hypothesis  that  a  primary  division  of  the 
psj^chic  life  exists  from  birth,  contradicts  the 
experience  of  the  continual  conflict  between 
the  two  gi'oups  of  forces ;  since  if  the  separa- 
tion were  present  from  the  beginning,  the 

[20] 


\ 


THE  MEANING 

danger  of  shifting  of  boundaries  would  not 
exist.  The  only  possible  assumption,  which 
is  further  confirmed  by  experience,  is,  the 
separation  does  not  exist  a  priori  but  origin- 
ates only  in  the  course  of  time.  This  de- 
marcation of  the  boundary  hne  must  be  a 
level  of  culture;  thus,  we  may  say  it  begins 
in  earliest  childhood  and  has  found  tempor- 
ary termination  about  the  time  of  puberty. 
The  unconscious  originates  in  the  childhood 
of  man,  which  circumstance  affords  the  ex- 
planation for  most  of  its  peculiarities."  ^ 

Enmeshed  as  we  all  are  in  the  complex 
structure  of  modern  civilization,  a  certain 
amount  of  repression  is  often  an  instrument 
of  safety  for  the  individual.  It  is  true  that 
repression  may  reach  a  point  of  such  inten- 
sity that  there  may  be  an  outbreak  of  the  re- 
pressed material  after  severe  fatigue  or  emo- 
tional strain,  leading  to  the  development  of 
neurotic   disturbances   or    nervous    "break- 

1  otto  Rank  and  Hans  Sfichs,  "The  Sijinificancc  of  Psycho- 
•Dalysis  for  the  Mental  Sciences"— 1015. 

[21] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

*  downs"  as  they  are  popularly  termed.     A 

i  nervous  breakdown  is  not  due  to  overwork 

or   over-worry,   these   merely   act   as   pre- 

\  cipitating  factors  in  unlocking  the  material 

■1 

\  which  has  been  repressed  in  the  unconscious. 

This  psychoanalytic  conception  is  per- 
fectly sound  and  is  diametrically  opposed  to 
the  superficial  view-point  of  the  French 
school,  particularly  Babinski,  who  states 
dogmatically  that  "When  the  human  soul  is 
shaken  by  a  profound  and  sincere  emotion, 
there  is  no  room  left  in  it  for  hysteria." 
Of  course  such  a  conception  deals  only  with 
recognized  conscious  processes.  In  order  to 
understand  the  relation  of  repressed  emo- 
tions to  hysteria,  it  is  necessary  to  approach 
the  problem,  not  from  the  descriptive  aspect, 
but  from  the  interpretative,  from  the  view- 
point of  unconscious  mental  conflicts. 

The  curse  of  modern  civilization  lies  in  ex- 
cessive repression  leading  to  codes  of  be- 
havior and  standards  which  are  fraught  with 

[22] 


THE  MEANING 

great  danger.  As  repression  begins  in  the 
child,  it  is  there  that  the  difficulty  arises. 
The  child  should  be  given  free  play  and  ac- 
tivity, adult  codes  should  not  be  stamped  on 
it,  it  should  be  taught  to  sublimate  and  not 
to  set  up  an  ideal  so  impossible  of  attain- 
ment that  repression  of  this  ideal  becomes 
necessary,  leading  to  all  sorts  of  mental  con- 
flicts. 

What  is  termed  sadism  is  a  form  of  re- 
pressed hate.  In  the  early  education  of  the 
child  and  in  the  suppressions  of  civilized  so- 
ciety, hate  is  strongly  repressed  in  its  out- 
ward manifestations.  The  repressed  ten- 
dency to  hate  is  one  of  the  stages  in  the  de- 
velopment of  normal  children  and  shows  it- 
self in  them  in  outbursts  of  irritability  and 
anger.  Children,  too,  take  a  keen  dehght 
in  inflicting  punisliment  on  animals,  or  on 
other  children,  on  toys  or  dolls,  the  latter 
for  the  child  symbolizing  the  living  object. 
Certain  adults  seem  to  have  never  been  able 

[•-'3] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

to  successfully  sublimate  this  repressed 
cruelty  so  as  to  transform  it  into  more  use- 
ful social  activity.  They  retain  their  child- 
hood pleasure  by  procuring  enjoyment  out 
of  pain  inflicted  upon  others. 

These  individuals  are  unaware  of  their  re- 
pressed cruelty  and  unconsciously  seek  posi- 
tions where  this  repressed  feeling  can  find 
an  outlet.  Here  also  are  grouped  the  neu- 
rotic antivivisectionists  whose  unconscious 
sadistic  tendencies  to  inflict  pain  on  others 
are  covered  up  or  compensated  by,  an  over- 
tenderness  for  animals. 

As  an  example  of  cruelt}'-,  which  had  be- 
come strongly  repressed  into  the  unconscious, 
the  following  case  can  be  cited.  In  a  young 
woman  who  was  undergoing  a  psychoanaly- 
sis for  a  severe  type  of  anxiety  hysteria,  the 
two  following  dreams  occurred  in  one  night. 

Dream  1.  Her  little  dog  seemed  to  have 
been  injured  and  was  covered  with  blood 

[24] 


THE  MEANING 

and  she  carried  him  to  a  veterinary  surgeon 
on  a  mattress. 

Dream  2.  Her  canary  bird  had  been 
killed  by  two  cats  and  appeared  covered 
with  blood. 

It  is  well  known  in  psychoanalysis  that 
where  more  than  one  dream  occurs  during 
the  night,  or  rather  during  the  same  period 
of  sleep,  that  it  deals  with  the  same  repressed 
material.  It  is  doubtful  in  these  cases 
whether  we  are  dealing  with  two  dreams,  or 
two  halves  of  the  same  dream.  Dreams  rep- 
resent repressions  into  the  unconscious,  they 
are  fulfillments  of  current  wishes  reenforced 
by  infantile  material.  In  the  case  referred 
to,  the  young  woman  had  always  been  over- 
sympathetic  towards  animals,  for  years  had 
been  a  member  of  the  Society  for  the  Pre- 
vention of  Cruelty  to  Animals  and  was  also 
an  ardent  antivivisectionist.  The  mere  idea 
of  inflicting  pain   on   animals   had   always 

[25] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

made  her  nauseated  and  she  became  hyster- 
ical if  she  saw  an  animal  suffer.  So  strong 
was  her  attachment  for  animals  that  she  had 
birds,  dogs,  a  monkey  and  even  a  dried  alli- 
gator in  her  home.  Yet  this  young  woman, 
who  by  her  outward  reactions  was  so  sensi- 
tive to  pain  in  animals,  had  in  her  uncon- 
scious a  repository  of  repressed  cruelty  as 
shown  by  her  dreams,  since  all  dreams  are  the 
product  of  the  unconscious.  This  solicitude 
for  dumb  animals  was  merely  a  conscious 
defense  for  her  unconsciously  repressed 
cruelty. 

An  excellent  example  of  sadism  in  history 
is  Gilles  de  Retz  of  Brittany,  the  original 
Blue  Beard,  who  was  executed  for  lust-mm'- 
der  at  Nantes  in  1440.^ 

The  character  of  I  ago,  of  all  great  crea- 
tions in  literature,  stands  predominant  as  a 
type  of  repressed  cruelty,  of  finding  pleasure 
in  the  sufferings  of  others.     lago  is  cruel  be- 

i  See  Thomas  Wilson's   "Blue  Beard,  a  Contribution  to 
History  and  Folk-lore"— 1899. 

[26] 


THE  MEANING 

cause  he  is  pathological,  pain  is  a  source  of 
pleasure  to  him  and  behind  it  all,  lies  the 
cjTiicism  of  his  character  and  the  almost  com- 
plete lack  of  erotic  feeling.  lago  is  not,  as 
Coleridge  states,  "the  motive-hunting  of  a 
motiveless  malignity,"  for  admirable  as  this 
cliaracterization  is,  it  does  not  express  the 
deeper  motives  of  lago's  character. 

Frequently  in  marital  conflicts,  which  con- 
stitute so  large  a  portion  of  the  defense-hys- 
terias of  adult  life,  there  is  a  strong  tendency 
to  outbursts  of  repressed  cruelty  in  the 
quarrels  of  husband  and  wife,  what  really 
might  be  termed  childhood  reactions  to  adult 
situations. 

The  history  of  civihzation  has  proved  be- 
yond doubt  that  there  exists  a  close  relation- 
ship between  cruelty  and  the  sexual  impulse. 
We  can  cite  the  exam])]es  of  those  subjects 
whose  cravings  are  satisfied  by  being 
whipped  themselves  or  whij)ping  others  and 
finally  those  cases  of  lust  murder  which  from 

[27] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

time  to  time  attract  wide  public  attention. 
It  is  really  the  gratification  of  the  sexual 
feeling  by  seeing  or  inflicting  pain  and  as 
such,  all  adults  possess  it  to  a  certain  degree, 
but  it  is  greatly  repressed.  Under  certain 
conditions  the  repression  is  broken  down,  the 
adult  regresses  to  the  time  of  childhood  when 
little  or  no  repression  took  place.  In  these 
circumstances  the  repressed  cruelty  breaks 
forth  and  projects  itself  into  all  forms  of 
abnormal  symptoms.  A  case  of  automatic 
laughter  on  analysis  was  found  to  be  based 
on  sadistic  fantasies  and  the  laughter  was 
really  the  unconscious  pleasure  in  the  ideas 
of  pain. 

Early  in  the  development  of  psychoan- 
alysis, the  cause  of  every  neurosis  was  sought 
in  so-called  trauma  or  emotional  injury,  the 
painful  memory  of  the  shock  remaining 
active  in  the  unconscious,  but  hidden  from 
the  thoughts  of  the  subject  and  producing 
its  effect  in  the  manner  of  a  foreign  body. 

[28] 


THE  MEANING 

At  that  time  a  complete  talking  out  or  abre- 
action,  which  constituted  the  so-called 
cathartic  method,  was  thought  to  be  suffi- 
cient to  produce  a  cure.  It  is  this  viewpoint 
of  psychoanalytic  therapeutics  which  is  still 
held  by  those  who  have  not  followed  its  re- 
cent developments  and  manifestations. 
These  developments  have  become  elaborated 
through  the  perfection  of  practical  technique 
and  a  deeper  understanding  of  repressions 
as  they  affect  human  emotions  and  conduct. 
It  is  now  known  that  the  task  of  psy- 
choanalysis consists  primarily  in  overcom- 
ing those  inner  resistances  which  prevent  the 
repressed  emotions  from  finding  complete 
and  more  nearly  normal  expression.  While 
recent  occurrences  may  act  as  precipitating 
factors  in  the  production  of  the  neurosis,  the 
real  basis  of  the  neurosis  is  found  in  certain 
emotions  wliich  have  become  strongly  re- 
pressed into  the  unconscious  and  are  pre- 
vented from  finding  a  normal  escape.     It  is 

[29] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

not  necessary  that  actual  memories  or  emo- 
tional scenes  become  repressed,  for  the  re- 
pression of  fantasies  or  images,  particularly 
those  produced  in  early  childhood,  can  pro- 
duce neurotic  manifestations.  For  instance 
a  neurosis  is  often  produced  by  carrying  into 
adult  life  from  early  childhood,  an  abnormal 
fixation  ^  on  one  of  the  parents,  the  father 
for  the  girl  and  the  mother  for  the  boy. 
These  form  the  so-called  Electra  or  OEdipus- 
complexes  respectively.  It  is  not  necessary 
that  the  fixation  be  on  the  parents  themselves 
to  produce  the  neurotic  deviation,  it  is  suf- 
ficient if  the  emotion  becomes  attached  to 
the  image  of  the  father  or  mother,  as  this 

1  Fixation  is  a  term  utilized  in  psychoanalysis  to  indicate 
that  during  the  course  of  individual  development  in  child- 
hood, the  emotional  attachment  to  a  member  of  the  family 
lingered  too  long  at  a  certain  age.  There  it  became  re- 
pressed into  the  unconscious,  but  later  in  life,  for  some 
special  reason,  the  expression  of  this  fixation  became  reani- 
mated in  the  form  of  a  neurosis,  because  the  individual 
was  never  quite  able  to  free  himself  from  his  childhood 
attachment  during  the  course  of  development.  The  libera- 
tion from  this  attachment  is  one  of  the  problems  of  psycho- 
analytic therapeutics. 

[30] 


THE  MEANING 

image  when  conserved  in  the  unconscious, 
may  produce  its  pernicious  effect  as  though 
the  attachment  were  to  the  actual  person. 

The  neurotic  may  thus  struggle  with  the 
image  of  one  long  since  dead.  In  fact  the 
image  to  which  the  patient  is  transfixed  may 
liave  died  before  the  birth  of  the  patient. 
It  is  such  observations  as  these  which  tend 
to  prove  that  the  actual  person  is  not  neces- 
sary for  the  conflict,  but  the  image  of  the 
person  may  produce  a  like  effect. 

The  strength  of  the  repression  depends 
upon  the  actual  situation  in  which  it  origin- 
ated, the  exact  type  of  experience,  the  gen- 
eral social  or  ethical  attitude  towards  the 
jjainful  idea  and  the  frequent  unconscious 
wish  to  escape  from  the  reality  of  the  re- 
pressed feeling.  A  repression  may  be  so 
severe,  that  the  subject,  in  order  to  escape  it, 
may  regress  to  infantile  forms  of  mental  and 
physical  activity,  as  is  so  often  seen  in  cer- 
tain cases  of  multiple  personality. 

[31] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

It  is  the  inner  resistance  which  prevents 
the  repressed  emotions  from  emerging  from 
the  unconscious  to  the  conscious  and  this  re- 
sistance is  a  protective  mechanism,  an  act  of 
defense. 

While  resistance  may  occur  in  every  day 
life  and  form  the  basis  of  our  antagonisms 
and  dislikes  and  attacks  of  irritability  to- 
ward certain  individuals,  yet  it  is  in  the 
course  of  the  psychoanalytic  treatment  of 
the  neuroses  that  they  are  the  most  marked 
and  most  clearly  defined.  Under  these  con- 
ditions, resistances  furnish  the  best  material 
for  the  study  of  the  phenomenon.  During 
a  psychoanalysis,  the  repressing  force  which 
made  the  neurotic  condition,  by  keeping  vari- 
ous repressed  emotions  in  the  unconscious, 
is  constantly  exerting  itself  to  prevent  these 
emotions  from  becoming  conscious.  The 
conflict  between  the  psychoanalysis  and  the 
desire  on  the  part  of  the  emotion  to  remain 
hidden,  is  the  resistance  to  the  treatment 

[32] 


THE  MEANING 

which  must  be  overcome.  Its  object  is  to 
keep  the  pathogenic  material  miconscious; 
hence  all  psychoanalysis  is  directed  toward 
an  overcoming  of  the  resistances,  for  until 
these  are  abolished,  the  neurosis  persists. 

These  resistances  during  an  analysis  may 
assume  many  different  forms,  such  as  ap- 
parently motiveless  hate,  fear  and  apprehen- 
sion towards  the  physician,  the  "forgetting" 
of  dreams  and  of  appointments  for  the  psy- 
choanalysis, finally  certain  types  of  dreams 
occur  in  which  the  unconscious  resistance 
is  clearly  defined.  In  these  cases  as  a  rule, 
the  analysis  is  dreamed  of  in  a  very  uncom- 
plementary  manner,  on  other  occasions,  as  in 
the  case  of  a  young  woman,  there  may  be  a 
veritable  bombardment  of  resistances  during 
the  period  of  the  analysis.  In  this  case,  in 
the  course  of  the  one  visit,  six  clearly  de- 
fined resistances  were  detected,  such  as  a 
symptomatic  action,  the  forgetting  of  a 
dream,  coming  late  for  an  appointment,  a 

[33] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

curious  error  in  spelling,  etc.  After  these 
resistances  were  overcome,  the  analysis  pro- 
gressed smoothly. 

An  example  of  this  resistance  as  it  occurs 
in  dreams,  was  furnished  by  the  case  of  a 
young  woman  who  was  undergoing  a  psycho- 
analysis for  anxiety  hysteria.  During  the 
course  of  the  analysis  she  had  the  following 
dream. 

She  seemed  to  be  taking  an  examination 
in  Chinese  history,  but  the  questions  were 
written  upside  down  on  the  blackboard.  In 
her  hand  she  held  a  porcelain  blue  and  white 
bust  of  Buddha.  She  was  unable  to  answer 
the  examination  questions,  in  fact,  she  could 
not  read  them  and  so  handed  in  a  blank  ex- 
amination paper. 

To  the  psychoanalyst,  the  analysis  of  this 
dream  is  clear.  It  represents  a  resistance 
in  the  form  of  symbols,  the  process  of  sym- 
bohzation  being  carried  out  unconsciously, 

[34] 


THE  MEANING 

the  subject  being  quite  unaware  of  the  sym- 
bols employed.  It  really  represented  the 
manner  of  unconscious  thinking  in  a  form 
unrecognizable  by  consciousness,  and  like  all 
symbols,  the  choice  was  not  arbitrary,  but 
had  its  sources  in  the  unconscious.^  In  this 
case,  the  subject  of  the  examination 
(Chinese  history),  the  distortion  of  the  ques- 
tions (upside  down)  and  the  statuette 
(Buddha),  all  signified  a  resistance,  namely, 
that  the  psychoanalysis  was  a  mystery  to  her, 
she  was  unable  to  understand  its  meaning  or 
purpose.  The  teacher  in  the  dream  was  the 
psychoanalyst  and  the  blank  examination 
paper,  which  she  handed  to  him,  symbolized 
her  ignorance  of  the  examination  (psycho- 
analysis). 

There  are  different  degrees  of  intensity 
of  repression,  but  their  mechanism  and  pur- 

1  See    my    "What    is    Psychoanalysis?"    pp.    60-61    for    n 
more  detailed  explanation  of  symholisni  in  psychoanalysis. 

[.3.5] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

pose  are  identical,  whether  it  produces  the 
absentmindedness  and  forgetting  of  every- 
day hfe  or  whether  it  produces  a  severe  hys- 
teria. 

In  dreams  the  repressed  emotion  often 
appears  with  startling  clearness,  either  lit- 
eral or  symbolized,  according  to  the  degree 
of  resistance  which  produced  the  displace- 
ment and  symbolism.  Sometimes  the  orig- 
inal repressed  feeling  is  so  sidetracked  dur- 
ing sleep,  that  the  dream  assumes  the  form 
of  what  is  popularly  known  as  a  nightmare 
and  technically  as  a  anxiety  dream. 

The  power  which  produced  the  repression 
is  always  active  and  with  the  lapse  of  time 
the  repression  becomes  more  permanent  and 
sinks  deeper  into  the  unconscious.  It  is  the 
task  of  the  psychoanalyst  to  dig  out  these 
buried  emotions  and  for  this  reason,  the  older 
the  person  or  the  longer  the  duration  of  the 
neurosis,  the  more  difficult  becomes  the  psy- 
choanalytic therapy,  as  the  cause  of  the  neu- 

[36] 


THE  MEANING 

rosis  in  these  cases  may  be  deeply  buried  in 
the  lowest  levels  of  the  unconscious. 

It  is  these  various  levels  of  the  unconscious 
which  offer  such  perplexing  problems  for 
psychoanalysis  in  the  removal  of  repressions 
and  the  neurotic  conflicts.     The  descent  into 
the  various  levels  of  the  unconscious  may  be 
compared  in  its  difficulties  with  Dante's  own 
neurotic  conflict,  while  the  guide,  Virgil,  may 
be  compared  to  the  psychoanalyst.     At  the 
lowest  level  of  the  unconscious  are  the  ar- 
chaic and  primitive  emotions  such  as  nutri- 
tion and  sex,  then  at  the  next  level,  rage, 
fear,  and  cruelty,  a  little  higher  up  are  lo- 
cated the  abnormal  fixations  on  the  family, 
then  occurs  the  level  of  the  censor,  finally 
the   foreconscious   and  the  conscious   level. 
Of  course  this  plan  is  purely  schematic,  but 
it  is  useful  for  purposes  of  description.     It 
is   at   the   level   below  the   censor  that   all 
dreams  are  made. 

So  the  psychoanalyst  becomes  the  paleo- 

[37] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

psychologist  and  the  uncovering  of  the  vari- 
ous levels  of  the  unconscious,  each  level  rep- 
resenting a  regression  to  the  collective  men- 
tal life  of  our  ancestors,  may  be  termed 
paleopsj'^chology.^ 

In  the  struggle  between  repressed  emo- 
tions and  the  social  conscious  life  there  are 
produced  irritations  and  antipathies,  which 
ape  synonymous  with  touching  a  sore  spot 
in  the  unconscious.  All  of  us  in  life  attempt 
to  avoid  pain  and  seek  pleasure,  hf  e  is  a  con- 
stant attempt  to  e-sicape  from  reality,  hence 
the  popularity  of  the  stage,  the  dance,  the 
movies  and  the  use  of  narcotic  drugs. 

We  recall  so  little  of  the  past,  particularly 
of  our  childhood  life,  not  because  it  has  faded 
from  memory  or  been  destroyed,  but  because 
it  has  been  repressed.  That  the  incidents  of 
childhood  are  merely  repressed  and  not  for- 
gotten is  shown  by  the  fact  that  these  appar- 
ently forgotten  memories  often  appear  liter- 

1  This  conception  of  the  various  levels  of  the  unconscious 
is  more  completely  elaborated  in  a  later  chapter  of  the  book. 

[88] 


THE  MEANING 

ally  in  dreams  or  in  symptomatic  actions. 

Repressed  emotions  seek  satisfaction  in 
the  outlet  of  a  more  primitive  manner  in  the 
form  of  a  neurosis,  such  as  anxiety,  fear, 
depression,  or  compulsive  thinking.  This 
repression  is  determined  because  it  is  intoler- 
able and  painful.  Those  who  can  work  off 
their  repressed  feelings  in  social  reconstruc- 
tion, mutual  aid,  intellectual  work  or  aes- 
thetic pursuits,  are  the  happiest  individuals. 
This  process  of  using  a  repressed  emotion 
for  a  more  useful  purpose  is  termed  sublima- 
tion. Those  who  bottle  up  their  feelings, 
who  become  victims  of  introversion  and  shut 
up  their  personality  by  building  a  wall  of 
resistance  about  it,  who  are  unable  to  find  an 
adequate  escape  from  intolerable  conflicts, 
who  show  infantile  reactions  to  adult  situa- 
tions, these  are  the  unhappy  neurotics. 

The  requirements  of  civilized  society,  of  a 
social  and  moral  and  ethical  code,  tend  to 
make  us  repress  our  frank  feelings.     Hence 

[39] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

arise  the  neuroses  in  an  abnormal  sense,  and 
in  everyday  life,  we  have  the  conventional 
lies  of  civilization.  These  repressed  emo- 
tions never  emerge  in  their  original  shape, 
but  are  converted  either  into  dreams,  hys- 
terical symptoms,  anxieties,  fears,  compul- 
sive thinking,  depression  and  insomnia. 

The  cohesion  of  modern  society  is  based 
upon  repression,  not  so  much  in  the  sense  of 
legal  formulations,  but  a  repression  arising 
from  within  the  individual.  Psychoanalysis 
understands  the  psychogenetic  determinants 
of  these  repressed  impulses  and  although  in- 
wardly there  may  be  mental  conflicts,  yet 
the  repression  of  these  conflicts  produces  an 
outward  semblance  of  comfort.  We  all 
have  past  or  present  mental  conflicts  which 
we  attempt  to  repress  and  this  repression 
may  be  successful  or  unsuccessful.  Some- 
times as  a  substitution  for  this  repression  an 
individual  may  take  a  flight  into  a  sort  of 
phantasmal  comfort,  that  is,  he  may  substi- 

[40] 


THE  MEANING 

tute  or  rationalize  for  his  real  conflicts,  some- 
thing which  for  the  time  heing  may  be  a 
cover  for  this  conflict,  even  though  such  a 
process  may  be  based  on  insincerity. 

Mass  repression  is  nothing  but  a  collec- 
tion of  individual  repressions  cemented  to- 
gether by  the  herd  instinct.  Because  of  the 
evolution  of  modesty  the  greatest  repression 
is  in  the  sexual  sphere. 

The  unconscious,  being  a  common  ethnic 
possession  is  the  same  in  both  primitive  and 
civilized  society,  with  the  difference,  that  in 
the  latter,  more  repressed  material  is  found. 
Neurotic  disorders  arise  from  a  blocking  of 
the  sexual  instinct,  but  the  panacea  is  not 
sexual  indulgence,  otherwise  the  Don  Juans 
of  society  would  be  free  from  neuroses. 

The  psychoanalyst,  when  he  approaches 
the  problem  of  repression  in  the  neuroses, 
needs  more  than  skill,  more  than  a  perfect 
technique,  more  than  a  knowledge  of  the 
psychology  of  the  neuroses.     His  mind  must 

[41] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

be  clean  as  a  surgeon's  hands  before  an  op- 
eration, his  attitude  towards  the  neurosis 
should  be  that  of  the  physician  whose  task 
it  is  to  help  and  not  that  of  the  moralist  who 
thinks  it  his  duty  to  criticize.  Any  criti- 
cism even  inwardly,  of  the  patient's  life  his- 
tory, of  his  conflicts  and  repressions  is  apt 
to  set  up  within  the  analyst  an  inner  resist- 
ance, and  this  resistance  in  the  analyst  as 
well  as  within  the  patient,  may  interfere  with 
the  course  of  the  psychoanalytic  therapy. 
Both  patient  and  physician  should  clearly 
recognize  the  problem  with  which  they  are 
dealing,  the  truth  must  be  thrashed  out,  no 
matter  how  painful.  Every  psychoanalyst 
should  know  his  own  resistances  and  com- 
plexes as  well  as  his  various  social,  religious 
and  political  prejudices. 

Psychoanalysis  is  of  gi'eat  value  in  a  com- 
plex modern  civilization,  not  only  for  the 
treatment  of  the  neuroses,  but  also  for  the  in- 
sight it  furnishes  into  certain  character  de- 

[42] 


THE  MEANING 

fects.  To  make  a  person  aware  of  his  re- 
pressions instead  of  closing  his  mind  to  them, 
is  to  utilize  the  knowledge  gained  for  the 
development  of  his  character.  A  psycho- 
analysis is  thus  an  education,  it  raises  the  un- 
conscious to  a  higher  cultural  level. 

As  is  well  known,  psychoanalysis,  as  elab- 
orated by  Freud,  means  an  analysis  of  the 
mind,  a  study  of  man's  unconscious  motives, 
repressions  and  conflicts.  Psychoanalysis 
also  demonstrates  that  the  very  foundations 
of  character  spring  from  the  unconscious  of 
the  individual  and  shape  his  behavior.  In 
other  words  each  individual  determines  his 
own  character  and  destiny.  Character 
traits  are  not  inherited  but  acquired. 

In  1907  one  of  the  greatest  thinkers  of  the 
Freudian  school,  Alfred  Adler,  of  Vienna, 
began  the  piil)lication  of  his  remarkable 
works  on   individualistic   psychology.^     He 

1  See  Alfred  Adler's  two  principal  Contributions — "The 
Neurotic  Constitution"  and  "Organ  Inferiority  and  its 
Psychical  Compensation." 

[43] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

demonstrated  that  the  predominant  traits  of 
character  are  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  overcome  a  feehng  of  either  mental 
or  physical  inferiority.  For  instance,  a  man 
who  as  a  boy  is  a  weakling  will  become  an 
advocate  of  the  strenuous  life,  or  one  whose 
thoughts  are  not  what  they  should  be  may 
become  overzealous  in  the  reform  of  so-called 
vulgar  literature  and  art.  Demosthenes, 
the  stammerer,  became  the  greatest  orator  of 
Greece. 

It  is  well  known  to  physicians  that  a  weak 
or  inferior  organ  tends  to  overcome  its  de- 
fects :  a  weak  heart  compensates  by  growing 
larger  and  stronger,  if  one  of  the  kidneys  is 
removed,  the  remaining  kidney  enlarges  and 
performs  the  work  of  two. 

This  is  exactly  what  happens  in  the  men- 
tal sphere.  The  feeling  of  inferiority  forces 
the  individual  to  make  supreme  efforts  to 
overcome  this  particular  defect.     Feelings 

[44] 


THE  MEANING 

of  inferiority  are  compensated  for  in  various 
ways  by  the  person  becoming  egotistical, 
boastful,  envious,  showing  a  tendency  to  un- 
dervalue all  men  and  things  except  them- 
selves, developing  ideas  of  greatness  and  om- 
nipotence of  thinking.  Of  course,  from  a 
Freudian  standpoint,  this  compensation  is 
really  a  repression  of  the  inferior  feeling. 

This  tendency  to  compensate  is  an  uncon- 
scious mental  process,  the  only  conscious 
feeling  being  the  over-compensation  which 
takes  the  form  of  day-dreams.  Their  origin 
is  unknown  and  never  understood  by  the 
sufferer.  These  day-dreams  are  so  often  re- 
peated that  they  become  part  and  parcel  of 
the  personality,  they  cannot  be  distinguished 
from  reality.  Thus,  the  individuals  with 
feelings  of  inferiority,  whether  real  or  fan- 
cied, are  individuals  who  possess  inferior  or- 
gans which  they  attempt  to  compensate. 
This  is  Adler's  great  contribution,  the  re- 

[45] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

markable  relationship  between  inferiority  of 
physical  structure  or  feelings  of  inferiority 
and  mental  compensation. 

The  collective  unconscious  of  society  is  the 
same  as  the  unconscious  of  the  single  indi- 
vidual, because  however  much  individuals 
may  differ  in  their  characterological  traits, 
it  is  in  their  merging,  their  cohesion  by  what 
is  termed  the  herd  instinct,  that  unifies  this 
plastic  human  material.  Therefore  society 
like  an  individual  suffers  from  resistances, 
from  mass  repression  and  from  flights  into 
emotional  upheavals. 

Society  consequently  can  be  psychoana- 
lyzed in  much  the  same  way  as  an  individual. 
Thus  psychoanalysis  can  show  the  real  char- 
acter of  society,  can  lay  bare  the  hidden, 
subterranean  motives  which  lie  behind  its 
various  emotional  manifestations.  Society, 
too,  like  the  individual,  has  its  dreams  and 
these  di-eams  in  a  primitive  community  take 
the  form  of  symbolic  creations,  myths,  folk 

[46] 


THE  MEANING 

lore,  and  in  a  more  materialistic  age,  of  ideal 
commonwealths. 

All  these  efforts  of  society  to  break  away 
from  its  present  status  are  really  the  fulfill- 
ment of  the  repressed  wishes  of  the  collective 
unconscious,  in  the  same  manner  that  a 
dream  represents  the  repressed  wish  of  the 
individual  unconscious.  No  social  problem 
can  be  solved  or  understood  unless  the  mo- 
tive force  of  this  collective  unconscious  is 
taken  into  consideration.  The  motive  force, 
the  key  to  all  human  activity,  is  the  repressed 

wish. 

The  foundation  of  psychoanalysis  rests 
upon  the  theory  of  the  unconscious.  Psy- 
choanalvsis  frees  the  repressed  impulses 
from  the  formation  of  neurotic  symptoms 
and  the  false  attitude  towards  reality  and 
adapts  these  impulses  to  real  possibiUties  in 
social  paths  of  gratification  and  develop- 
ment. 

It  is  the  task  of  the  psychoanalysis  to  warn 

[47] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

against  too  strong  repression  in  childhood 
and  thus  turn  the  normal  impulses  of  the 
child  into  channels  which  are  fraught  with 
neurotic  pitfalls.  Instincts  should  be  con- 
trolled and  not  repressed  and  this  control 
should  show  itself  in  varying  adaptations  to 
reality.  As  stated  by  Rank  and  Sachs  ^ — 
"The  child  is  only  to  be  educated  by  love 
and  under  this  condition  will  feel  sufficiently 
punished  by  a  withdrawal  of  this.  Only  for 
a  beloved  person  does  he  gladly  give  up  the 
undesirable  attributes  and  aims,  and  as- 
sumes an  imitation,  by  way  of  identification 
with  adults,  what  culture,  in  the  shape  of  this 
beloved  object  of  love  demands  of  him."  It 
was  stated  in  a  previous  contribution.^ 
"The  treatment  of  the  psychoneuroses  should 
begin  early,  it  should  be  prophylactic  and 
educate  and  correctly  mold  the  psycho- 
sexual  trends  of  his  child.     The  best  method 

lO.  Rank  and  H.  Sachs  "The  Significance  of  Psycho- 
analysis for  the  Mental  Sciences." 

2  Isador  H.  Coriat— "Psychoanalysis  and  the  Sexual  Hy- 
giene of  Children"— TAc  Child,  Jan.,  1912. 

[48] 


THE  MEANING 

of  controlling  these  feelings  is  to  teach  the 
child  to  change  or  sublimate  these  into 
higher  artistic  or  intellectual  interests." 

Dr.  Oskar  Pfister  of  Zurich,  Switzerland,* 
has  found  a  large  number  of  neurotics  among 
school  children,  neuroses  whose  origin  is 
emotional,  such  as  stammering,  morbid  fears, 
blushing,  shyness,  petty  stealing  and  lying, 
all  of  which  could  be  made  to  disappear 
under  psychoanalytic  treatment.  It  is  to 
the  lazy,  uninterested,  stupid,  day-dreaming 
pupils  (provided  of  course  that  actual  or- 
ganic feeblemindedness  can  be  eliminated) 
that  psychoanalysis  can  be  applied  and  be  of 
material  help. 

As  an  example,  a  young  man  came  for 
personal  advice  because  of  inability  to  study 
and  to  concentrate.  This  is  a  very  frequent 
complaint  during  the  period  of  puberty  and 
adolescence.     An  analysis  proved  that  the 

1  See  Oskar  Pfister— "The  Psychoanalytic  Method"— from 
whirh  the  quotations  arc  taltrn  (translated  by  Dr.  Charles 
U.   Payne). 

[49] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

subject  suffered  from  -a  very  severe  form  of 
day  dreaming,  a  sort  of  withdrawal  from 
reality,  because  he  preferred  his  day-dreams 
to  more  practical  efforts  of  study.  Such  an 
individual  tendency  is  full  of  danger  for  the 
development  of  a  severe  neurosis  or  even  a 
psychosis  and  should  be  treated  by  psycho- 
analysis and  not  by  the  usual  superficial  ad- 
vice to  take  "training  in  concentration."  In 
this  case  concentration  was  not  at  fault,  the 
difficulty  was  an  abnormal  slipping  back  into 
a  realm  of  day-dreaming  because  the  realities 
of  life  no  longer  interested  bim. 

School  teachers  should  be  trained  in  cer- 
tain psychoanalytic  principles  in  order  to 
better  appreciate  the  odd  or  unusual  child 
and  to  refer  him  to  the  proper  source  for 
treatment.  The  attitude  of  such  children 
should  not  be  dismissed  with  the  mere  label- 
ing of  "stubborn"  or  "inattentive,"  for  the 
motive  for  such  a  reaction  usually  lies  deep 
within  the  personality  of  the  child. 

[50] 


THE  MEANING 

As  an  example  of  how  much  harm  can  be 
done  by  the  parent  in  not  handling  the  child 
properly,  we  refer  to  the  case  of  a  ten  year 
old  boy  whose  mother  kept  his  hair  long,  in 
Dutch  clip  style,  like  a  girl.  The  boy  was 
the  youngest  of  four  children,  all  boys,  and 
the  mother's  disappointment  in  not  having 
a  girl  found  an  outlet  in  having  the  youngest 
child  resemble  a  girl  as  much  as  possible. 
Here  is  a  problem  fraught  with  the  most 
dangerous  situations,  in  that  this  arouses  in 
the  boy  not  only  a  feeling  of  inferiority,  but 
such  a  boy  will  be  subject  to  ridicule  from 
his  playmates  and  thus  tend  to  become  less 
and  less  social. 

The  development  of  such  a  mental  atti- 
tude of  sensitiveness  and  a  shut-in  personal- 
ity with  all  that  it  implies,  lays  the  founda- 
tion for  a  se^'ere  neurosis  during  the  adoles- 
cent period,  wlien  the  individual  most  feels 
the  need  of  becoming  a  social  being. 

Pfistcr  well  states  as  follows — "Parents 

[51] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

must  exercise  particular  care  that  no  feeling 
of  inferiority  be  aroused.     In  order  that  the 
child  may  have  a  normal  relation  to  father 
and  mother,  both  parents  must  work  to- 
gether hai-moniously.     The  more  completely 
we  see  through  a  pupil,  so  much  the  more 
interesting  does  he  become  to  us,  and  the 
more  profoundly  he  perceives  himself  under- 
stood by  us,  just  so  much  the  more  influence 
do  we  gain  over  him.     He  will   then  no 
longer  attempt  to  escape  a  just  and  neces- 
sary  command   by   an  unconsciously   pro- 
duced headache  or  to  gain  our  sympathy  by 
unconsciously   arranged   sufferings   and   to 
pose  as  a  victim  of  overwork  when  he  is  lazy." 
Finally  to  show  how  sensitive  a  child  is 
and  how  it  may  develop   into   a  situation 
which  in  an  adult  would  be  capable  of  easy 
adjustment,  the  case  may  be  cited  of  an 
eleven  year  old  girl  who  suddenly  told  the 
neighbors  that  she  was  badly  treated  at  home 
and  a  few  days  later  ran  away,  remaining 

[52] 


THE  MEANING 

away  the  greater  part  of  the  night.  It  was 
shown  on  a  short  analysis,  that  her  story  of 
being  badly  treated  at  home  was  a  mere  fab- 
rication and  that  she  told  this  tale  and  later 
ran  away,  because  recently  a  baby  sister  had 
been  given  her  room.  This  aroused  such  a 
feeling  of  jealousy  in  the  child,  that  her  sen- 
sations became  those  of  a  sudden  impulse, 
to  which  she  added  the  fabrication  of  being 
ill  treated,  in  order  to  fortify  her  attitude. 

Teachers  should  have  a  knowledge  of  the 
child's  unconscious  mind  for  only  by  this 
knowledge  will  they  develop  a  greater  toler- 
ance for  the  various  perplexities  of  child- 
hood, the  dislikes  and  distastes  of  children 
and  their  often  curious  reactions  to  adult 
situations. 

Individual  differences  between  children 
are  marked  and  infinite.  For  tliis  reason, 
the  peculiar  behavior  of  tlie  child  can  never 
be  fathomed  by  any  one  of  the  many  so- 
called  inlclligence  tests.     The  failure  to  per- 

[38] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

form  one  of  these  tests  may  not  mean  any 
intellectual  deficiency  in  a  given  direction, 
but  may  be  due  to  an  emotional  blocking  of 
thought  whose  origin  is  in  the  unconscious. 
The  adolescent  situation  and  the  trans- 
formation of  puberty  is  thus  expressed  by 
Freud/  "Simultaneously  with  the  over- 
coming and  rejection  of  these  .  .  .  phan- 
tasies, there  occurs  one  of  the  most  important 
as  well  as  one  of  the  most  painful  psychic 
accompaniments  of  puberty:  it  is  the  break- 
ing away  from  parental  authority.  .  .  . 
Many  persons  are  detained  at  every  station 
in  the  course  of  development  through  which 
the  individual  must  pass;  and  accordingly 
there  are  persons  who  never  overcome  the 
parental  authority  and  never  or  very  imper- 
fectly withdraw  their  affections  from  their 
parents.  They  are  mostly  girls,  who  to  the 
delight  of  their  parents  retain  their  full  in- 
fantile love  far  beyond  puberty." 

1  S.  Freud— "Three  Contributions  to  the  Sexual  Theory." 

[54] 


THE  MEANING 

In  psychoanalytic  terms  the  situation 
named  may  be  expressed  as  follows: — From 
very  early  childhood,  beginning  at  the  period 
between  three  and  five  years  of  age,  children 
manifest  prematm-e  choice  in  relation  to 
adults,  particularly  the  adults  of  the  family 
group,  such  as  parents  and  nurses.  This  is 
the  so-called  family  romance  and  this  devel- 
opment in  the  family  unit  is  of  great  impor- 
tance for  the  impressions  stamped  upon  the 
plastic  mind  of  the  child.  It  is  these  impres- 
sions which  are  gradually  repressed  and 
forced  from  consciousness  or  the  foreground 
of  the  mind  into  the  unconscious  or  the  back- 
ground of  the  mind.  It  is  in  the  handling 
of  these  impressions  which  are  so  important 
for  the  later  life  of  the  individual,  as  to 
whether  they  will  be  successfully  directed 
and  the  individual  remain  healthy,  or  the  in- 
dividual become,  incapacitated  by  these  im- 
pressions and  become  the  future  neurotic. 

Thus  there  comes  a  time  in  the  life  of  every 

[55] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

one,  in  which  the  great  decision  must  be 
made,  whether  or  not  he  will  retain  his  emo- 
tional fixation  to  the  family  or  will  break 
away  from  his  infantile  moorings,  grow  in- 
tellectually and  emotionally,  put  aside  his 
childhood  and  go  forth  into  the  world  of 
reality.  It  is  usually  the  only  child  who  is 
most  liable  to  retain  his  infantile  attachment 
to  the  family  group.  When  the  critical 
period  of  puberty  and  adolescence  arrives, 
such  an  "only  child"  becomes  incapacitated 
by  the  struggle  to  break  away  and  manifests 
symptoms  of  a  so-called  "nervous  break- 
down" so  erroneously  described  to  overwork, 
when  in  reality  it  is  due  to  an  inner  conflict 
between  the  attempt  to  come  into  touch  with 
adult  reality  and  the  breaking  away  from 
infantile  moorings.  It  is  this  conflict,  this 
vicissitude  of  the  emotional  life,  this  swing- 
ing of  the  pendulum  between  childhood  and 
adult  development,  with  the  new  increase  of 
repression  which  it  brings  with  it,  that  leads 

[56] 


,    » 


THE  MEANING 

so  often  in  adolescent  girls  to  the  neurosis 
known  as  hysteria.  Boys  too  are  liable  to 
hysterical  disturbances  at  tliis  critical  period, 
but  to  a  far  less  degree  than  girls,  since  in 
the  latter  there  is  more  repression  and 
greater  physiological  and  psychological 
cliange  in  the  life  history  of  the  individual. 
In  puberty  and  adolescence  also  the  instinc- 
tive sexual  tendencies  attempt  to  find  an  ob- 
ject on  which  to  fasten  themselves  outside 
the  family  group.  This  explains  the  strong 
craving  for  love  and  the  adolescent  crushes 
which  are  so  often  seen. 

These  so-called  "crushes"  of  adolescent 
boys  and  girls  are  usually  a  temporary 
phenomenon  and  are  so  frequently  encoun- 
tered, that  they  can  be  interrupted  as  merely 
a  phase  of  normal  development.  The  im- 
portance of  this  tendency  in  a  sublimated 
form  in  the  life  of  adults,  in  the  evolution  of 
friendship,  social  help  and  nmtual  aid,  can- 
not be  overestimated. 

[57] 


CHAPTER  II 

REPRESSED   EMOTIONS   IN    PRIMITIVE 
SOCIETY 

The  complex  construction  of  a  psycho- 
neurosis  in  an  aduit,  due  to  the  influence  ex- 
erted by  the  multipHcity  of  factors  of  civili- 
zation and  cultural  advancement,  is  some- 
times SO  bewildering  as  to  almost  defy  all 
attempts  at  analysis.  In  children,  the  or- 
ganization of  a  psychoneurosis  is  usually 
very  simple,  almost  monosymptomatic,  and 
in  children,  too,  we  often  discover  these  neu- 
roses in  the  actual  processes  of  making. 
When  adult  life  is  reached  the  individual 
has  left  behind  him  all  the  factors  of  his 
childhood  life  and  all  the  repressed  experi- 
ences and  desires  which  tend  to  produce  his 
adult    characteristics.     Among    adults    of 

[58] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 

primitive  races  however,  where  the  mental 
organization  is  far  less  complex  than  that  of 
civilized  man,  certain  psychoneurotic  dis- 
turbances  are  found,  which  if  analyzed, 
might  disclose  the  mental  mechanisms  of 
these  disturbances  reduced  to  their  simplest 
terms. 

It  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  be  able 
to  secure  data  of  this  sort,  pertaining  to  cer- 
tain curious  nervous  attacks  which  occur 
among  the  primitive  races  of  the  Fuegian 
Archipelago.  These  facts  were  supplied 
me,  following  along  lines  of  a  questionnaire, 
by  the  well  known  explorer  Charles  Welling- 
ton Furlong,  F.  R.  G.  S.  who  in  1907-1908, 
was  in  charge  of  the  first  scientific  expedition 
to  cross  through  the  heart  of  Tierra  del 
Fuego.  Mr.  Furlong's  keen  powers  of  ob- 
servation have  made  the  data  unusually 
complete.  While  he  had  no  theory  to  offer 
in  explanation  of  the  attacks  as  seen  among 
these  primitive  tribes,  it  is  interesting  to  note 

[59] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

that  certain  of  the  facts  corroborate  the  well- 
known  ideas  of  sexual  repression  as  elabor- 
ated by  Freud.  The  mental  organizations 
of  these  people,  likewise,  seem  to  substan- 
tiate certain  psychoanalytic  conceptions. 
For  a  clear  comprehension  of  these  attacks, 
certain  preliminary  anthropological  and 
geographical  data  are  necessary. 

The  following  data  relates  to  running 
amuck  or  "outbursts,"  among  the  Yahgan 
and  Ona  tribes  of  the  Fuegian  Archipelago. 
The  data  was  obtained  in  1907  and  1908  dur- 
ing expeditions  through  the  regions  of  the 
Fuegian  Archipelago. 

The  Yahgans,  some  forty  years  ago,  num- 
bered perhaps  2,500,  but  ia.  1908  this  number 
had  been  reduced  through  contact  with  civili- 
zation and  principally  through  an  epidemic 
of  measles  to  173.  These  peoples  are  canoe 
Indians  and  inhabit  to-day  the  Island  coasts 
from  Beale  Island  to  the  Wollastons  inclu- 
sive, in  the  neighborhood  of  Cape  Horn, 

[60] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 

from  about  54  50'  S.  Lat.  to  about  55  56'  S. 
Lat.,  making  them  the  southern-most  inhab- 
itants of  the  world.  The  Ona  Indians,  a 
taller  and  finer  race  physically,  who  are  foot 
Indians,  occupy  the  mountain  and  forest  re- 
gion of  southern  Tierra  del  Fuego  from  ap- 
proximately 53  50'  S.  Lat.  to  55  3'  S.  Lat. 
The  Onas  formerly  occupied  the  entire  north- 
ern half  of  Tierra  del  Fuego  and  possibly 
numbered  some  3,000,  but  through  contact 
and  warfare  with  tlie  whites,  who  drove 
them  south  off  the  open  lands  of  the  north, 
they  have  been  reduced  to  about  300.  These 
people  are  of  a  light  cinnamon  colored  skin, 
black  liaired,  and  of  a  decided  American  In- 
dian type.  The  Onas  are  above  the  average 
stature,  the  Yahgans  below  it. 

It  is  not  an  infrequent  occurrence  for  in- 
dividuals among  both  the  Yahgans  and  Onas 
to  be  subject  to  sudden  outbursts  of  furore 
and  violence.  At  such  times,  however,  it  is 
the  custom  of  some  of  the  men  to  follow 

[(ii] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

closely  behind  to  see  that  harm  does  not  come 
through  injmy  against  trees,  stimibling,  or 
falling  from  the  cliffs.  They  rarely  touch 
the  afflicted  one  except  to  prevent  harm,  and 
finally  will  lead  him  back  to  the  camp,  when 
the  attack  is  over  or  when  he  is  exhausted. 

While  the  attack  occurs  both  among  men 
and  women,  it  seems  to  be  more  prevalent 
among  men.  The  individuals  in  whom  these 
attacks  predominate  are  men  in  the  prime  of 
life,  ranging  from  twenty-five  to  thirty-five 
years  of  age.  These  people  are  polygamous, 
as  it  is  the  custom  for  the  old  men  to  marry 
young  girls  thus  leaving  the  old  women  to 
the  younger  men,  which  in  many  instances 
causes  a  scarcity  of  women. 

As  a  rule  the  character  of  the  attack  con- 
fines itself  to  the  mad  rushing  away,  as  above 
described,  at  other  times  it  consists  of  at- 
tempts to  injure  or  kill.  For  instance,  a 
rancher  of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  was  in  the  com- 
pany of  some  Onas,  when  suddenly  a  hatchet 

[62] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 

whizzed  by  him,  barely  missing  his  head,  and 
buried  itself  in  a  log  of  the  Indian  shelter. 
This  was  the  result  of  an  attack  w^iich  sud- 
denly appeared  in  a  native  who  was  afflicted 
thus  from  time  to  time.     The  actual  outburst 
in  this  case  was  sudden,  although  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  tell  how  long  it  might  have  been  com- 
ing on  in  the  form  of  brooding,  which  seems 
to  be  a  premonitory  phase  of  this  condition. 
Concerning  a  personal  experience  with  one 
of  the  early  phases  of  the  attack,  Mr.  Fur- 
long states  as  follows; — "I   am  fully  con- 
vinced that  one  night  while  camping  alone 
with  Onas  in  the  heart  of  the  Fuegian  for- 
ests, that  my  head  man  Aanakin,  who  had 
a  good  many  killings  to  his  credit,  was  brood- 
ing as  he  sat  in  his  wigwam,  which  opened 
towards  the  fire;  he  watched  me  for  nearly 
an   hour  with   an   attitude   and  expression 
which  reminded  me  of  the  look  a  dog  takes 
on  sometimes  before  he  snaps.     Aanakin,  I 
knew  to  be  of  a  very  moody  nature,  but  this 

[03] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

particular  mood  was  so  marked  and  por- 
tended evil  so  noticeably  toward  me  without 
any  apparent  cause,  that  I  decided  to  do 
something  to  break  its  mental  trend.  So 
putting  fresh  wood  on  the  fire,  to  make  a 
more  brilliant  blaze,  I  walked  directly  into 
his  wigwam  and  motioned  to  one  of  his  two 
wives  who  was  lying  beside  him.  There 
was  a  passing  look  of  half-anger,  half -sur- 
prise, but  I  gave  no  time  for  his  mind  to 
dwell  in  the  same  mood,  for  simultaneously 
I  produced  my  notebook  and  pencil  and  be- 
gan to  make  drawings  of  animals  and  other 
things  that  were  famihar  to  them.  They 
like  to  watch  one  draw  and  name  the  thing, 
and  so  I  kept  them  busy  for  perhaps  an  hour, 
and  finally  had  them  in  gales  of  laughter. 
I  am  quite  convinced  that  I  forestalled  an 
attack  or  a  condition  akin  to  it." 

It  seems  that  an  attack  usually  begins 
suddenly.  However,  an  instance  is  given 
where  an  Ona  becoming  moody  realized  that 

[64] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 

one  of  these  attacks  was  incubating  and  put- 
ting his  hands  together  begged  to  have  his 
wrists  and  feet  bound  in  order  that  he  would 
not  do  liimself  or  others  harm,  or  that  it 
would  not  be  thought  that  he  meant  to  kill 
and  consequently  be  shot  in  self-defense. 
This  would  seem  in  a  way  to  indicate  that 
there  was  no  amnesia  for  the  attack,  as  the 
Indian  undoubtedly  realized  what  he  had 
done  in  previous  attacks. 

The  mood}'  state  and  the  realization  of 
what  might  follow  as  the  attack  developed, 
demonstrates  a  sense  of  uneasiness  as  the 
premonitoiy  symptom,  which  ends  in  a  state 
of  utter  exhaustion  and  sleep.  The  nor- 
mal condition  is  resumed,  practically  on 
awakening  from  sleep  and  recovery  of 
strength. 

From  a  description  of  Donald  MclNIillan, 
the  explorer,  the  Eskimo  disease  termed 
Pil)loklo  strongly  resembles  these  attacks  of 
tlie  Onas  and  Vahgan  Indians  witli  the  ex- 

[05] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

ception  that  Piblokto  was  particularly  prev- 
alent among  women/ 

How  an  attack  begins  is  shown  by  the  case 
of  Aanakin,  an  Ona  of  Furlong's  expedition. 
A  certain  form  of  melancholia,  brooding  or 
moodiness,  seems  to  precede  many  of  these 
attacks,  with  a  realization  sometimes  that  an 
attack  is  developing.  The  Onas  not  being 
naturally  a  quarrelsome  people,  it  may  be 
that  this  reahzation  and  foreboding  of  the 
attack  accounts  for  their  tendency  to  run 
away  from  their  associates,  when  they  have 
endured  the  strain  as  long  as  they  can,  thus 
placing  themselves  in  a  position  to  avoid  a 
deliberate  assault  or  injury  to  those  about 
them. 

It  was  further  stated,  in  answer  to  the 
questionnaire — "I  cannot  give  you  absolute 
data  regarding  laughing  or  crying  in  this  at- 
tack, screaming,  yells,  foaming  at  the  mouth, 
biting  the  tongue,  tearing  the  clothes,  al- 

1  See    A.    Brill— "Piblokto   or    Hysteria    Among   Peary's 
Eskimos" — Journal  of  Nervous  and  Mental  Disease — 1913. 

[66] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 


\ 


though  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  any  or  all 
of  these  things  may  and  do  occur.  As  to 
violent  resistance,  the  case,  where  the  man 
wished  to  be  bound,  would  show  there  was 
violent  resistance,  and  it  is  probable  that 
partly  for  this  reason  the  Onas  and  Yahgans 
do  not  molest  the  afflicted  except  to  prevent 
them  from  harming  themselves,  preferring 
to  wait  until  the  paroxysm  exhausts  them. 
I  cannot  state  positively  as  to  whether  the 
attack  is  explained  by  the  natives  as  being 
due  to  an  evil  spirit.  While  the  people  are 
polygamous,  though  having  no  form  of  re- 
ligious worship,  they  usually  believe  when 
any  one  has  a  disease  that  something  has  en- 
tered them  or  some  one  who  dislikes  them  has 
surreptitiously  sent  some  small  animal  or  ar- 
row into  tliem.  Among  the  Yahgans  the 
'Yuccamoosh'  (doctors)  or  magicians  pro- 
ceed to  pretend  to  extract  these  objects  by 
a  form  of  squeezing  and  hugging  the  patient, 
in  tlie  meantime  blowing,  hissing,  etc.,  to 

[07] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

force  the  object  of  evil  out.  I  have  never 
known  of  their  doing  this,  however,  to  a  per- 
son suffering  from  an  attack. 

"I  am  unable  to  supply  any  direct  data  as 
to  the  relation  of  love,  hunger,  sexuality, 
death  of  relatives  or  absent  relatives  to  an 
attack.  On  the  death  of  a  relative,  the  Yah- 
gans  go  through  incantations  in  the  form  of 
a  sort  of  weird  death  chant,  which  they  often 
sing  in  unison  at  certain  times  of  the  day 
and  night.  They  paint  their  faces  to  show 
the  death  to  strangers,  but  they  rarely  men- 
tion the  name  of  the  dead,  in  fact  by  most  it 
is  considered  an  offense  to  do  so.  They 
simply  say — 'He  is  gone.'  'He  is  no  more.' 
They  feel  the  loss  of  relatives  very  keenly 
and  sorrow  for  them,  and  sometimes  become 
violent  with  grief  and  rage. 

"Regarding  the  primitive  type  of  mental 
organization  among  these  natives, — despite 
Darwin's  first  opinion  of  them,  which  was 
subsequently    modified,— I    consider    these 

[68] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 

people  inherently  intelligent,  though  of  a 
very  primitive  type  as  far  as  culture  is  con- 
cerned, probably  the  most  primitive  in  this 
hemisphere,  perhaps  in  the  world,  as  the 
Onas  are  to-day  living  in  the  Old  Stone  Age. 
Dr.  E.  Von  Hornbostel  of  Berhn  Univer- 
sity, who  has  collaborated  with  me  in  making 
a  special  study  of  my  phonographic  records 
of  their  songs,  informs  me  that  these  songs 
are  the  most  primitive  American  Indian 
songs  of  which  they  have  any  records." 

Of  importance  for  a  clear  understanding 
of  the  mental  traits  of  these  Indian  tribes, 
as  the  source  from  which  these  attacks  de- 
velop, is  the  study  of  tlieir  dreams,  their  sys- 
tem of  taboos  and  their  myths.  So  far  as 
could  be  determined  from  the  data  supplied, 
the  dreams  of  these  primitive  races  strongly 
resemble  the  di-eams  of  children,  as  these 
aboriginal  tribes  possess  many  childlike  at- 
tributes. In  fact  up  to  a  certain  age  the 
civilized  child  is  really  a  little  savage,  with 

[69] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

his  strong  egotism  and  feelings  of  rivalry,  his 
taboos,  his  jealousies  and  his  few  or  no  al- 
truistic tendencies.  In  the  child  as  in  the 
savage  the  wish  and  the  thought  are  synony- 
mous, both  want  their  desires  immediately 
gratified,  although  such  gratification  may  be 
impossible  in  reality. 

The  dreams  of  the  Yahgan  Indians  are 
simple  wish-fulfillments,  without  disguise  or 
elaboration,  like  the  dreams  of  a  civilized 

child. 

The  Yahgan's  attitude  towards  death  is 
the  same  as  that  of  many  primitive  races 
and  their  lack  of  understanding  of  the  real 
meaning  of  death,  strongly  resembles  in  its 
attitude  that  of  a  civilized  child.  Any 
reference  to  death  is  strongly  tabooed 
among  them  and  to  transgress  this  taboo,  ex- 
poses the  individual  to  gi^ave  danger  and 
severe  punishment,  even  the  punishment  of 
the  thing  tabooed.  Thus  the  person  who 
transgressed    this    taboo    becomes    himself 

[TO] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 

taboo  by  arousing  the  anger  or  the  resent- 
ment of  other  members  of  this  tribe.  How- 
ever, a  certain  ambivalent  ^  tendency  seems 
to  be  present,  for  while  the  word  "death"  and 
the  mention  of  the  dead  are  prohibited,  yet 
they  feel  deep  grief  and  sorrow  for  their 
dead  relatives.  Transgi'ession  of  the  taboo 
may  arouse  the  other  aspect  of  the  ambiv- 
alent attitude  (for  instance  anger  instead  of 
sorrow)  and  it  thus  becomes  a  source  of  dan- 
ger to  the  guilty  individual  and  so  by  con- 
tagion and  imitation  to  the  community  at 

large. 

This  ambivalent  tendency  which  leads  to 
taboos  is  prominent  among  primitive  races 
as  well  as  in  civilized  children.  For  in- 
stance, in  the  latter  there  may  be  cited  the 
taboo  of  pronouncing  certain  words  which 
leads  to  the  anxiety  neurosis  of  stammering 

1  Ambivalence  is  a  term  used  in  psychoanalysis,  which, 
according  to  IJleuler,  "gives  the  same  idea  two  contrary  feel- 
ing tones  and  Invests  the  same  thought  siiuultancously  with 
both  u  positive  and  a  negative  character." 

[71] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

or  the  taboo  of  objects  possessing  a  sexual 
significance  in  producing  the  compulsion 
neurosis  of  kleptomania.  As  civilization 
and  cultural  advancement  increase  or  as  the 
child  becomes  the  adult,  the  taboo  tendency 
gradually  declines,  yet  under  certain  condi- 
tions it  may  manifest  itself  as  a  psychoneu- 
rotic symptom. 

When  we  approach  this  problem  of  the 
taboo  from  the  field  of  psychoanalysis,  in 
those  who  Hve,  not  in  primitive  surround- 
ings, but  in  a  highly  civilized  and  complex 
society,  we  find  certain  individuals  who  have 
created  artificial  taboos  for  themselves:  they 
follow  out  these  prohibitions  as  strictly  as 
the  savage  follows  his  taboos.     This  condi- 
tion is  found  in  the  compulsion  neurosis,  and 
as   Freud   very   ingeniously   suggests,    the 
term  "taboo  disease"  might  be  an  appro- 
priate one  for  this  malady.     In  the  savage, 
the  taboo  is  a  conscious  act,  bound  up  with 
certain  ceremonials  of  great  religious  and 

[72] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 

social  significance.  In  the  compulsion  neu- 
rotic, the  taboo  has  its  origin  in  the  uncon- 
scious and  the  unconscious  of  the  compulsion 
neurotic  as  shown  by  the  dreams  predomin- 
antly contains  hostile  and  savage  wishes  and 
thus  is  synonymous  with  the  conscious  be- 
havior of  primitive  peoples  themselves. 

After  this  digression  we  are  in  a  position 
to  understand  the  psychology  of  the  taboo  as 
it  is  revealed  in  the  compulsion  neuroses. 
For  this  purpose,  it  is  best  to  relate  briefly 
the  history  of  a  patient  with  a  compulsion 
neurosis,  who  came  under  personal  observa- 
tion. 

A  young  man  for  several  years  had  had 
the  feeling  that  he  became  easily  contam- 
inated, either  by  touching  objects  which  he 
felt  were  contaminated  or  by  merely  passing 
a  location  (such  as  a  dug  up  street  or  sewer) , 
which  he  felt  might  be  the  source  of  contam- 
ination. As  a  result,  he  would  set  up  all 
sorts  of  defensive  acts  to  oppose  this  con- 

[73] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

tamination,  either  by  having  his  clothes  fre- 
quently cleaned,  or  by  habitually  washing 
his  hands.  In  the  analysis  a  large  number 
of  peculiar  dreams  appeared  which  I  have 
termed  "calamity  dreams."  In  these 
dreams,  severe  accidents  or  calamities  would 
happen  to  people  who  were  total  strangers 
to  the  dreamer,  such  as  little  girls  being  run 
over  by  motor  trucks  or  young  men  being 
severely  cut  by  broken  glass.  This  type  of 
dream  is  very  primitive  and  savage  and 
clearly  demonstrates  an  unconscious  hostil- 
ity to  inflict  pain  or  suffering,  directed  to- 
wards any  one.  These  feelings  or  wishes  are 
repressed  in  the  unconscious,  and  the  com- 
pulsion neurosis,  the  feeling  of  contamina- 
tion, arises  as  a  defense  (or  punishment) 
against  these  repressed,  cruel  and  savage  im- 
pulses. 

He  worried  about  the  future,  because  he 
felt  that  certain  objects  in  years  to  come 
would  remain  contaminated  from  him.     To 

[74] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 

him  the  contamination  is  in  the  object,  is  part 
of  it,  and  not  inherent  in  his  ideas,  although 
it  is  the  reahty  of  his  thoughts  which  forms 
the  basis  of  the  compulsive  thinking.  He 
hopes  hke  primitive  peoples,  that  the  trans- 
fer of  contamination  will  relieve  him  by  ac- 
tually making  the  contamination  cling  to  the 
object,  he  acts  as  if  inanunate  things  were 
the  carriers  of  contamination.  This  is  the 
typical  taboo-transference  of  savages  and 
shows  how  primitive  is  the  unconscious  of  a 
compulsion  neurotic.  As  Freud  states :  ^ 
"Obsessive  prohibitions  possess  as  extraor- 
dinary capacity  for  displacement ;  they  make 
use  of  almost  any  form  of  connection  to  ex- 
tend from  one  object  to  another.  The  com- 
pulsion neurotics  act  as  if  the  'impossible' 
person  and  things  were  carriers  of  a  danger- 
ous contagion,  which  is  ready  to  displace  it- 
self through  contact  to  all  neighboring 
things." 

1  S.  Freud— "Totem  and  Tnhoo"— p.  46. 

[T5] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

As  these  particular  primitive  races  have 
no  conception  of  immortality,  this  taboo  can- 
not be  a  religious  or  moral  obligation  or 
prohibition,  but  a  social  phenomenon  for  the 
benefit  of  the  tribe  or  for  the  physical  welfare 
of  the  individuals  comprising  the  tribe. 
Freud  also  has  pointed  out  how  the  avoid- 
ance of  the  names  of  the  dead  because  of  the 
fear  of  offense  to  the  living  is  found  among 
certain  South  American  tribes.  He  states: 
— "One  of  the  most  surprising  but  at  the 
same  time  one  of  the  most  interesting  taboo 
customs  of  mourning  among  primitive  races, 
is  the  prohibition  against  pronouncing  the 
name  of  the  deceased.  The  avoidance  of  the 
name  of  the  deceased  is,  as  a  rule,  kept  up 
with  extraordinary  severity.  Thus  among 
many  South  American  tribes  it  is  considered 
the  gi^avest  insult  to  the  survivors  to  pro- 
nounce the  name  of  the  deceased  in  their 
presence,  and  the  penalty  set  for  it  is  no  less 
than  that  for  the  slaying  itself.  .  .  ."     "The 

[76] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 

strangeness  of  this  taboo  on  names  dimin- 
ishes if  we  bear  in  mind  that  the  savage  looks 
upon  his  name  as  an  essential  part  and  im- 
portant possession  of  his  personality."  In 
civilized  society  too  the  death  of  a  dearly  be- 
loved one  is  often  followed  by  a  purposeful 
forgetting  (repression)  of  their  physical  ap- 
pearance, a  sort  of  defense  of  the  mind  to 
minimize  the  loss. 

A  third  factor  of  importance  is  a  study  of 
their  myths.  These  are  the  savage's  day 
dreams.  The  relation  between  myths  and 
dreams  is  well  known,  both  having  their 
roots  in  the  unconscious  thinking  of  the  race. 
In  the  individual  this  unconscious  mental 
process  produces  dreams,  in  the  race  and 
society,  myths.  Only  one  instance  will  be 
cited,  the  legend  of  the  Yahgan  Indians 
concerning  tlie  creation  of  the  first  man  and 
woman.  AVhen  one  of  the  tribe  was  asked 
how  the  first  human  being  came  into  the 
world,  he  replied  that  a  long  time  ago  the 

[77] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

first  man  came  down  from  the  sky  on  a  rope, 
and  later,  the  woman  followed.  Here  is  a 
striking  instance  of  how  an  adult  Indian  had 
applied  his  knowledge  of  individual  births 
literally  to  a  cosmic  process,  a  genuine  crea- 
tion myth  as  a  form  of  symbolic  thinking. 
There  seems  little  doubt  in  this  case,  that  the 
sky  which  to  all  savages  appears  like  a  bowl, 
represented  the  uterus  and  the  rope,  the  um- 
bilical cord.  The  resemblance  of  this  myth 
to  certain  birth  or  parturition  dreams,  as  en- 
countered in  the  psychoanalytic  investiga- 
tions of  civilized  adults,  is  certainly  striking. 
How  is  this  mass  of  material  to  be  inter- 
preted? The  mental  traits  of  these  people 
as  shown  by  an  analysis  of  their  taboos, 
myths  and  dreams,  are  very  primitive  in  or- 
ganization, in  fact  according  to  Mr.  Fur- 
long, they  represent  the  most  primitive  types 
of  culture  in  the  world.  Individuals  of  such 
primitive  mental  traits  have  not  yet  learned 
to  successfully  repress  their  emotions  and 

[78] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 

hence  are  liable  to  sudden  emotional  out- 
bursts. Substitution  and  repression  in  civ- 
ilized races  are  utilized  to  cover  complex 
and  multifarious  ways  of  expressing  social 
wishes  and  wants.  In  the  savage  there  is 
little  or  no  repression  and  substitution,  be- 
cause his  desires  are  simple  and  easily  satis- 
fied. 

These  primitive  people  therefore  resemble 
children,  without  inhibitions  or  repressions. 
Their  attacks  of  violence  and  furore  are  sud- 
den emotional  reactions,  perhaps  hysterical, 
but  without  any  phenomena  of  what  is 
termed  hysterical  conversion,  such  as  the 
changing  of  ideas  or  emotions  into  physical 
symptoms  of  paralysis  or  loss  of  sensation. 

The  relation  of  the  attacks  to  an  unsatis- 
fied sexual  craving  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
the  attacks  occur  only  in  young  men  whose 
lil)ido  remains  unsatisfied,  as  according  to 
tribal  custom  they  are  compelled  to  marry 
old  women,  or,  in  the  words  of  the  explorer 

[70] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

who  lived  among  the  people,  "old  derelicts." 

This  factor,  combined  with  the  observation 

that  the  victims  of  the  attack  are  free  from 

the  loss  of  consciousness  and  amnesia  and  the 

absence  of  an  absolute  evidence  pointing  to 

foaming  of  the  mouth  or  biting  of  the  tongue, 

would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  outbursts 

were    hysterical    rather    than    epileptic    in 

nature. 

It  seems  that  the  attacks  themselves  are 

motivated,  not  so  much  by  the  actual  gross 
sexual  as  by  an  ungratified  or  only  partially 
gratified  love  which  would  occur  in  a  man 
who  is  compelled  by  social  and  tribal  custom 
to  marry  an  old  woman.  Among  the  Eski- 
mos this  factor  is  at  work  in  the  woman, 
among  the  Fuegians  in  the  men.  Conver- 
sion phenomena  were  absent,  because  their 
mental  organization  is  very  simple,  in  the 
same  way  that  childhood  hysteria  is  free  from 
conversion  symptoms  or  at  most  is  mono- 
symptomatic. 

[80] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 

That  the  unconscious  thinking  of  man  is 
the  same  the  world  over  and  that  similar 
symbolic  representations  of  repressed  feel- 
ings can  be  found  in  primitive  tribes  sep- 
arated by  time  and  space,  is  shown  by  the 
identity  of  the  myths  of  the  Pueblo  dwellers 
of  America  and  the  Polynesian  and  Aus- 
tralian myths,  as  compared  with  the  myths 
of  the  Fuegian.  There  is  a  strong  identity 
between  dreams  and  myths,  both  are  child- 
hood phantasies  which  have  been  repressed 
into  the  unconscious  and  both  are  symbolic. 
In  the  case  of  a  dream  this  repressed  ma- 
terial is  projected  into  the  partially  sleeping 
consciousness,  in  the  case  of  a  myth,  it  is 
projected  either  as  the  birth  of  a  hero  or  a 
birth-process  or  as  a  phantasy  of  heroism 
and  salvation.  A  myth  becomes  then  really 
a  waking  dream. ^     Symbolism  is  the  true 

1  See    on    this    point    Abruhain's    "Dreams    and    Myth-s" 
Rank's— "Myth  of  the  Birth  of  the  Hero."     Also  my  paper 
"Dreams  and  the  Samson  Myth"   (Int.  Zeit.  f.  Artz  Psycho 
Analyse— Vol.   II,   No.  5)    and  "The   Sexual  Symbolism  of 
the  Cretan  Snake  Goddess  (Psychoanalytic  Review,  Vol.  IV, 

[81] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

language  of  the  thinking  and  feehngs  of 
primitive  people  and  unconsciously  of  civil- 
ized peoples.  It  has  its  roots  in  the  uncon- 
scious, since  all  symbols  are  identical  be- 
cause unconscious  thinking  is  identical. 

The  unconscious  not  only  originates  in  the 
childhood  of  man,  but  it  may  also  be  said 
to  have  its  origin  in  the  childhood  of  the 
world.  If  it  were  possible  to  penetrate  into 
the  mind  and  motives  of  prehistoric  man, 
such  data  might  be  able  to  throw  light  upon 
unconscious  symbolism  in  its  most  primitive 
form  and  the  earliest  stages  of  its  develop- 
ment. While  the  skeletal  remains  of  pre- 
historic man  have  been  subjected  to  a  search- 
ing anatomical  investigation  on  account  of 
their  comparative  abundance,  yet  the  data 
upon  the  mental  activities  of  the  men  of  pre- 
historic times,  by  the  very  reason  of  their 
remoteness,  must  be  very  fragmentary.^ 

No.  3).  The  best  discussion  of  the  entire  question  is  found 
in  Freud's  "Totem  and  Taboo." 

1  See  on  this  Henry  Fairfield  Osborne's  "Men  of  the  Old 

[82] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 

It  can  be  shown  on  the  basis  of  fairly 
abundant  material,  particularly  in  the  plas- 
tic arts  and  paintings  in  the  caverns,  that  the 
various  races  of  prehistoric  times  seemed  to 
possess,  in  much  the  same  way  that  modern 
man  possesses,  strong  yearnings  and  mo- 
tives, pleasure  and  pain.  Men  even  in  those 
remote  times  tended  to  emphasize  the  sexual 
element  and  their  beautiful  color  paintings 
in  the  caverns  seemed  to  show,  that  even  long 
years  ago,  men  attempted  to  repress  reahty, 
to  break  away  from  it  in  the  struggle  for 
existence  and  from  the  monotony  of  life  in 
the  dark  caverns. 

Some  of  the  pliallic  symbolism  of  their 
every  day  utensils  is  interesting,  a  symbol- 
ism so  often  found  in  dreams.  Symbolism 
and  consequently  even  repression,  although 
to  a  less  extent  than  in  a  more  modern 
civilization  thus  liad  its  origin  in  the  remotest 

stone  Afre"— 1915,  and  my  critic.ii  review  of  the  same,  from 
n  psyclioanalytie  standpoint  in  the  Journal  of  Abnormal 
Piychology,  Vol.    II,   No.  \. 

[83] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

ages  of  the  past.  The  symbolism  of  dreams 
draws  its  material  from  this  remote  ancestry, 
showing  how  primitive  and  archaic  the  un- 
conscious of  man  is  and  how  often  the  dream 
is  merely  a  fragment  of  the  mental  life  of 
our  remote  ancestors. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  briefly  discuss  a 
few  primitive  myths  as  projections  of  mate- 
rial which  is  repressed  in  the  unconscious  of 
man  and  of  the  race.^ 

In  the  myths  of  the  Pueblo  dwellers  we  are 
told,  that  "According  to  their  Genesis,  the 
ancestors  of  the  Pueblo  dwellers  issued  from 
the  fourfold  underworld  through  a  Sipapu, 
which  some  regard  as  a  lake,  and  thence 
journeyed  in  search  of  the  Middle  Place  of 
the  world.  Earth's  navel."  Here  the  birth 
symbolism  is  very  evident  as  in  all  primitive 
thinking,  the  application,  as  in  the  Fuegian 

1  The  material  utilized  here  is  taken  from  the  "Mythology 
of  all  Races,"  Vol.  10,  North  American  Indian, — Hartly 
Burr  Alexander,  and  Vol.  II,  "Oceanic,"  by  Roland  R. 
Dixon. 

[84] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 

myth,  of  an  individual  birth  process  to  a 
cosmic  birth  process. 

In  the  Pueblo  mythology,  too,  the 
"Plumed  Serpent"  is  connected  both  with 
lightning  and  fertility  and  the  same  identity 
can  be  detected  in  the  analysis  of  the  Pro- 
metheus myth.  In  the  "highly  dramatic 
snake  dances  of  the  Hopi  Indians,  there  are 
several  acts  which  seem  to  represent  the 
fructification  of  the  maize  by  the  "Plumed 
Snake."  This  latter  quotation  shows  that 
the  phallic  synibolism  of  the  serpent  is  recog- 
nized by  the  comparative  mythologist  as  well 
as  by  the  psychoanalyst. 

The  natives  of  Australia  are  in  their  cul- 
ture among  the  lowest  people  in  the  world, 
luit  at  the  same  time  they  possess  extraor- 
dinary complex  social  organizations  and 
elaborate  rchgious  ceremonials.  They  have 
but  httle  repression  hence  their  mytli«  refer- 
ring to  the  origin  and  birth  of  human  beings 
are  very  literal  and  not  at  all  symbohzed. 

[85] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

"They  had  no  distinct  limbs  or  organs  of 
sight,  hearing  or  smell,  and  did  not  eat  food, 
and  presented  an  appearance  of  human  be- 
ings all  doubled  up  into  a  rounded  mass  in 
which  just  the  outline  of  the  different  parts 
of  the  body  could  be  vaguely  seen."  In  an- 
other creation  myth,  there  was  absolutely  no 
repression,  the  ocean  was  derived  directly 
from  the  amniotic  liquor. 

In    a    Polynesian    myth,    showing    the 
CEdipus  trend,  we  see  the  symboHzation  of 
the  repressed  family  conflict  which  so  fre- 
quently occurs  in  the  childhood  of  man,  lays 
the  foundation  for  a  future  neurosis  and 
often  appears  in  the  dreams  of  adults.     In 
these  dreams  the  father  is  slain  or  does  not 
appear    and    the    mother    is    triumphant. 
These  over-attachments  to  one  of  the  family 
group,  usually  the  son  to  the  mother,  are 
strongly  repressed  as  the  individual  develops, 
and  forms  what  is  known  as  the  CEdipus 
complex,    from    the    well    known    Greek 

[86] 


IN  PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY 

legend.  This  legend,  like  the  Polynesian 
myth,  merely  represents  the  repressed  feel- 
ings of  the  race,  the  over-love  for  the  mother 
and  hate  for  the  father.  This  Polynesian 
myth  is  very  interesting  because  it  occurs  in 
a  very  primitive  race  which  had  the  same 
Qi^dipus  legend,  as  the  more  cultured 
Greeks,  although  these  two  races  were  sepa- 
rated by  immense  periods  of  time.  In  this 
myth,  the  father  is  symbolized  as  the  sky 
and  the  mother  as  the  earth. ^ 

1  See  on  this  point,  "Mythology  of  all  Races,"  Vol.  9, 
•'Oceanic  Myths"  in  Chapter  I,  "Myths  of  Origins  and  the 
Deluge." 


[87] 


CHAPTER  III 

BEPRESSED  EMOTIONS  IN  LITEKATUEE 

It  is  generally  admitted  that  Russian 
literature  abounds  in  abnormal  characters 
and  in  delineations  of  nervous  and  mental 
diseases,  and  as  such  it  offers  interesting  and 
valuable  material  for  the  psychoanalyst. 
The  best  examples  of  these  psychopathic  and 
neuropathic  personahties  are  found  in  the 
Russian  novel,  but  occasionally  we  find  this 
morbid  tendency  in  Russian  lyric  poetry. 
Readers  of  Lermontoff's  "Tamara,"  which 
is  sort  of  a  Russian  Lorelei,  will  find  a 
striking  resemblance  to  Heine's  famous 
poem  in  its  association  of  pleasure  with  pain. 

The  best  psychopathic  examples  are 
found  in  Dostoevsky,  who  painted  abnormal 
men  and  women  in  novels  of  tremendous 
power.  Because  he  himself  was  an  epileptic 
and  so  understood  the  disease  with  all  the  up- 

[88] 


IN  LITERATURE 

setting  factors  producing  the  individual  at- 
tacks, Dostoevsky  described  epileptic  con- 
vulsions, the  ecstatic  aura  or  warning  of  the 
attacks  and  the  epileptic  personahty,  with 
an  astonishing  degree  of  accuracy.  For  this 
reason,  the  works  of  Dostoevsky  furnish  a 
valuable  clinic  for  the  psychoanalyst/ 

No  one  but  a  sufferer  from  epilepsy  could 
have  written  the  astonishingly  accurate  and 
terse  account  of  an  epileptic  attack,  as  it 
appears  in  "Crime  and  Punishment."  A 
less  gifted  author  or  one  who  did  not  under- 
stand the  disease,  would  have  produced  an 
eye-witness's  description  of  an  epileptic 
convulsion.  Not  so  Dostoevsky.  For  him, 
an  epileptic  attack,  as  to  all  epileptics,  is  not 
objective,  it  consists  merely  of  a  queer  and 
sometimes  indescribable  bodily  sensation 
and  then  a  break  in  consciousness. 

For  example,  Raskolnikov,  after  the  mur- 
der, is  about  to  make  a  voluntary  declara- 

1  Sec  "A   Study  of  the   Epilepsy  of  Dostoevsky"  by  L. 
Pierce  Clark — Botton  Mpdicnl  and  Surgical  Journal — 1915. 

[80] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

tion  of  his  crime  before  the  pohce.  He  com- 
plains of  being  dizzy,  and  then  Dostoevsky 
goes  on  to  say:  ^ — "Raskolnikov  picked  up 
his  hat  and  walked  toward  the  door,  but  he 
did  not  reach  it.  .  .  .  When  he  recovered 
consciousness,  he  found  himself  sitting  in  a 
chair,  supported  by  some  one  on  the  right 
side,  while  some  one  else  was  standing  on  the 
left,  holding  a  yellowish  glass  filled  with 
yellow  water."  This  is  a  description  of  a 
genuine  epileptic  seizure ;  exactly  the  manner 
in  which  sufferers  from  epilepsy  character- 
ize their  attacks — a  queer  feeling  and  then 
they  find  themselves  lying  on  the  ground  or 
in  a  hospital  bed. 

Other  examples  of  the  portrayal  of  the 
abnormal  mental  states  are  seen  in  the  curi- 
ous religious  symbolism  of  Korolenko's 
"Makar's  Dream,"  the  sensual  details  in 
Kuprin's  stories  of  garrison  life  and  also  in 
"The  Little  Demon"  of  Feodor  Sologub. 

1  "Crime   and  Punishment"    Part    II.     Chapter   I— (Con- 
stance Garnett's  translation). 

[90] 


IN  LITERATURE 

Both  as  a  novel  and  a  psychiatrical  docu- 
ment, "The  Little  Demon"  is  a  masterpiece. 
Briefly,  the  storv  states  that  the  schoolmaster 
Peredonov  has  been  promised  an  inspector- 
ship of  schools  if  he  will  marrj^  his  mistress 
and  around  this  slight  nucleus  there  develops 
the  various  ramifications  of  his  mental  dis- 
ease. Out  of  this  coveted  inspectorship,  the 
various  delusions  arise,  elaborate  themselves 
more  and  more  and  become  more  complex 
as  the  different  situations  of  the  novel  de- 
velop. The  thwarted  desires  of  the  school- 
master finally  crystallize  into  clearly  formed 
delusions  of  persecution;  in  other  words, 
Peredonov  becomes  the  victim  of  a  mental 
disease  known  as  paranoia.  In  the  history 
of  psychiatry  this  term  has  had  wide  varia- 
tions and  been  loosely  used,  but  in  individ- 
uals of  Peredonov's  personality,  it  refers  to 
a  type  of  mental  reaction  where  the  affected 
subjects  are  inclined  to  see  a  sinister  mean- 
ing in  things  and  to  misinterpret  actual 
occurrences. 

[91] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

In  Peredonov's  case,  as  in  all  paranoiacs, 
the  delusions  are  the  logical  outgrowth  of 
actual  situations  in  the  life  of  the  individual. 
These  actual  situations,  however,  are  never 
misinterpreted  unless  there  occurs,  as  in  the 
case  of  Peredonov,  what  may  be  termed  an 
overloading  of  each  situation  with  certain 
emotions  and  unfulfilled  desires.  Thus  the 
delusion  formation  is  not  the  disease,  it  is 
merely  the  symptom,  the  outward  exj^ression 
of  the  underlying  pathological  mental  state. 
From  this  standpoint  "The  Little  Demon" 
is  not  only  a  masterly  novel  but  also  a  psy- 
chiatrical document  of  great  value. 

All  who  have  carefully  analyzed  the  gen- 
esis and  development  of  paranoiac  delusions 
have  seen  Peredonovs  in  reality  and  have 
noted  their  over-suspiciousness  and  misinter- 
pretation of  actual  life  situations. 

With  the  exception  of  Maupassant's  "Le 
Horla"  I  know  of  no  work  in  prose  literature 
in  which  the  complicated  skeins  of  a  mental 

[92] 


IN  LITERATURE 

disorder  are  so  cleverly  unraveled  as  in  this 
novel  by  Feodor  Sologub.  There  is  an  in- 
teresting parallel,  too,  between  the  visual 
hallucinations  of  the  "Being"  in  "Le  Horla" 
and  the  hallucinations  of  the  "Nedotikomka" 
in  the  "Little  Demon." 

Another  example  of  an  accurate  portrayal 
of  a  pathological  mental  state,  both  in  the 
reactions  of  the  individual  involved  and  of 
the  means  utilized  to  bring  this  indiv.idual 
out  of  his  abnormal  mentality,  is  found  in 
Goncharoff's  "Oblomoff." 

Oblomoff  is  not  only  a  product  of  supreme 
merit,  parallel  to  the  best  work  of  Tolstoy, 
Dostoevsky  and  Turgenieif ,  but  it  possesses 
a  valuable  psychoanalytic  interest  in  that  it 
portrays  a  certain  type  of  repressed  or  shut 
in  human  character  and  shows  the  reactions 
of  that  character  to  inner  conflicts  and  upset- 
ting emotional  factors.  Tlie  author  pre- 
sents a  valuable  portrayal  of  a  shut-in  or 
introverted    personality,   and   demonstrates 

[93] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

how  love  acted  on  this  introverted  individual 
in  the  same  manner  in  which  a  psychoanaly- 
sis works. 

This  book  is  therefore  of  great  interest  to 
the  psychoanalytic  physician.  Intuitively 
the  author  portrayed  a  certain  type  of  neu- 
rosis, probably  the  outgrowth  of  his  own  ex- 
periences. Olga  is  really  the  psychoanalyst 
and  Oblomoff  the  patient.  The  genius  of 
the  author  has  unconsciously  traced  the  de- 
velopment of  a  neurosis  and  its  conclusion 
that  is  more  slowly  and  painfully  reached  by 
the  psychoanalyst.  We  are  in  the  presence 
of  a  unique  and  at  the  same  time  a  highly 
scientific  conception. 

In  order  to  understand  the  book  and  its 
relation  to  the  writer  and  his  time,  it  be- 
comes necessary  to  say  a  few  words  concern- 
ing the  author,  Goncharoff.^  Kropotkin 
states  that  the  most  popular  novel  of  Gon- 

1  Much  of  what  follows  concerning  Goncharoflf  is  taken 
from  the  admirable  account  In  Kropotkin's  "Idealg  and 
Realities  in  Russian  Literature." 

[94] 


IN  LITERATURE 

charoflT  is  "Oblomoff,"  which  like  Turge- 
nieff's  "Fathers  and  Sons"  and  Tolstoy's 
"War  and  Peace"  and  "Resurrection,"  is  one 
of  the  profoundest  productions  of  the  last 
half  century.  "It  is  so  thoroughly  Russian, 
so  Russian  indeed,"  he  says,  "that  only  a 
Russian  can  fully  appreciate  it,  but  it  is  at 
the  same  time  universally  human,  as  it  intro- 
duces a  type  which  is  almost  as  universal  as 
that  of  Hamlet  or  Don  Quixote."  It  is 
here  that  we  see  the  real  significance  of  the 
novel,  it  is  the  "universally  human,"  as 
Oblomoff  represents  a  type  of  character,  or 
even  of  disease,  which  is  represented  by 
withdrawal  from  reality  and  living  and  lux- 
uriating in  day  dreams. 

It  appears  that  the  novel  portrays  the 
close  connection  between  its  principal  char- 
acter and  the  author  himself,  in  fact,  it 
seems,  as  in  so  many  supreme  works  of  art, 
to  be  nothing  more  than  GoncharofF's  pro- 
jection of  his  own  inner  feelings  in  the  form 

[95] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

of  a  literary  creation.  In  his  short  auto- 
biography, Goncharoff  states  .  .  .  "My 
people  did  not  let  me  have  even  a  wish,  all 
had  been  foreseen  and  attended  to  long 
since.  The  old  servants,  with  my  nurse  at 
their  head,  looked  into  my  eyes  to  guess  my 
wishes,  trying  to  remember  what  I  liked  best 
when  I  was  with  him,  where  my  writing  table 
ought  to  be  put,  which  chair  I  preferred  to 
the  others,  how  to  make  my  bed.  The  cook 
tried  to  remember  which  dishes  I  liked  in 
my  childhood  .  .  .  and  all  could  not  admire 
me  enough." 

When  the  novel  was  published  in  Russia 
in  1859,  it  made  an  extraordinary  impression. 
"All  educated  Russia  read  Oblomoff  and 
discussed  Oblomoffism.  Every  one  recog- 
nized something  of  himself  in  Oblomoff,  felt 
the  disease  of  Oblomoff  in  his  own  veins  .  .  . 
and  now  forty  years  afterward,  one  can  read 
and  re-read  'Oblomoff'  with  the  same  pleas- 
ure of  nearly  half  a  century  ago,  and  it  has 

[96] 


IN  LITERATURE 

lost  nothing  of  its  meaning,  while  it  has  ac- 
quired many  new  ones.  There  are  always 
living  Oblomoffs." 

There  are  always  living  Oblomoffs! 
How  true!  We  are  attracted  to  Hamlet 
and  Faust  again  and  again  because  they 
represent  universal  types,  every  one  has 
something  of  Hamlet  or  Faust  within  him. 
So  is  Oblomoff  a  universal  type.  The  psy- 
choanalyst meets  with  Oblomoffs  continually 
in  his  practice.  Every  neurotic,  who  lives  in 
his  day  dreams,  who  has  withdrawn  more  or 
less  from  reality,  who  as  a  consequence  dis- 
plays the  inhibition  and  inertia  of  introver- 
sion is  an  Oblomoff.  The  character  of 
Oblomoff  presents  such  valuable  material  for 
the  psychoanalyst,  because  it  portrays  the 
neurosis  of  a  real  human  being. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  analysis  of  the 
novel,  it  miglit  be  well  to  give  a  short  out- 
line of  the  case  of  a  neurotic  patient,  so  that 
it  may  be  compared  with  the  hero  in  Gon- 

[97] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

charoff's  production.  It  will  be  noticed, 
that  the  artificial  creation  cannot  be  differ- 
entiated from  the  real  individual. 

It  refers  to  the  case  of  a  young  man  who 
might  be  termed  a  modern  Oblomoff  thus 
showing  that  the  character  of  Oblomoff  is 
not  limited  to  any  particular  time  or  race. 
He  was  an  extreme  neurotic,  who  for  years 
had  withdrawn  more  and  more  from  reality, 
had  built  a  sort  of  mental  Chinese  wall 
around  his  mind,  and  as  in  a  forbidden  city, 
had  preferred  to  luxuriate  in  his  day  dreams 
rather  than  come  into  touch  with  reality.  In 
his  case  as  in  Oblomoff 's  there  is  no  balanced 
proportion  of  day-dreaming  and  realistic 
functioning,  the  realistic  does  not  control  his 
day-dreaming  but  rather  the  day-dreaming 
controls  the  realistic. 

From  his  early  childhood,  as  in  Oblomoff 
and  in  GoncharofF's  Autobiography,  his  rel- 
atives absolutely  directed  his  everyday  life. 
He  did  everything  slowly  and  with  a  great 

[98] 


IN  LITERATURE 

deal  of  inhibition  and  when  completely  dom- 
inated by  his  day-dreams,  he  would  display 
intense  inertia  and  become  completely  in- 
active. 

This  living  in  day-dreams  and  idly  allow- 
ing the  day-dreams  to  represent  wishes  or 
desires  which  are  impossible  of  fulfillment  in 
reality,  is  termed  ''autistic  thinking,"  a  term 
introduced  by  the  Swiss  physician  Bleuler. 
This  autistic  thinking  is  universal,  from  the 
child  to  the  adult.  It  exists  in  all  grades  of 
intensity  in  human  beings.  In  normal  and 
healthy  individuals  it  is  kept  within  certain 
limits  by  logical  thinking,  the  autistic  think- 
ing never  gains  the  upper  hand.  When  the 
balance  between  the  two  is  upset,  a  neurosis 
develops.  The  neurotic  withdraws  from 
reality  and  lives  in  the  unreality  of  the  day- 
dream, but  can  always  bv  an  effort  bring 
himself  l)ack  into  touch  with  reality  again. 
To  use  a  Miltonic  i)hrase,  the  neurotic  is 
constantly  "hatching  vain  empires." 

[99] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

In  extreme  cases,  the  individual  is  com- 
pletely dominated  by  his  autistic  thinking, 
he  loses  all  contact  with  reality,  lives  in  his 
day-dreams,  his  fairy  tales;  and  this  living 
in  the  fairy  tales  may  produce  a  delusional 
state  which  the  subject  is  unable  to  expel. 
Such  a  person  is  insane,  the  victim  of  a 
mental  disease  because  he  lives  his  fairy  tale, 
it  is  real  to  him,  he  believes  in  it  and  conse- 
quently no  amount  of  reasoning  or  logic  can 
shake  his  belief.     Such  a  person,  in  technical 
terms,  lacks  insight.     It  is  thus  that  certain 
individuals  develop  the  belief  that  they  are 
great  personages,  a  king  or  a  queen.  Napo- 
leon, Jesus.     On  the  surface,  the  thinking 
or  ideas  of  such  persons  appear  sheer  non- 
sense,   something   absolutely    impossible    is 
imagined  and  beheved  to  be  real. 

A  beautiful  example  in  contemporary  lit- 
erature, of  the  manner  in  which  autistic 
thinking  may  completely  dominate  the  per- 
sonality and  so  lead  to  a  complete  with- 

[100] 


IN  LITERATURE 

drawal  from  reality,  can  be  found  in  Lord 
Dunsany's  "The  Coronation  of  INIr.  Thomas 
Shap."  *  ^Ir.  Shap's  occupation  consisted 
of  the  dull  monotony  of  a  prosaic  clerk 
until  he  began  to  first  perceive  "the  very 
beastliness  of  his  occupation"  and  "from 
that  moment  he  withdrew  his  dreams 
from  it"  and  "took  little  flights  with  his 
fancy  at  first;  dwelt  all  day  in  his  dreamy 
way  on  fields  and  rivers  lying  in  the  sun- 
light." Little  by  httle  he  withdrew  more 
and  more  from  reality,  "his  soul  was  no 
longer  in  them."  He  began  to  lead  another 
life,  neglected  his  business,  in  his  own  imagi- 
nation he  lived  in  scenes  of  oriental  splendor 
and  finally  dominated  them  as  king  "throned 
on  one  amethyst."  Here  we  have  an  exquis- 
ite picture  of  the  paranoiac  domination  of 
the  personality  of  an  individual  who  has  be- 
come dissatisfied  with  reality,  in  which  the 
})alance  of  his  own  tliouglits  and  of  coming 

>  Lord  Dunsany — "The  Book  of  Wonder." 

[101] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

into  touch  with  reality,  was  completely  upset. 
It  will  be  seen  that  there  is  no  hard  and 
fast  line  to  be  drawn  between  the  autistic 
thinking,  the  repressed  ideas  of  normal  indi- 
viduals and  of  cases  of  nervous  and  mental 
disease.     In  normal  individuals,  there  is  a 
constant   balancing:    there    always    remain 
many  points  of  contact  in  reality;  in  the 
abnormal  cases,  these  points  of  contact  grow 
less  and  less,  until  they  entirely  disappear. 
But  autistic  thinking,  if  well  balanced,  is 
not  absolutely  dangerous.     A  neurotic  dif- 
fers from  a  normal  individual  in  that  he  pos- 
sesses only  isolated  points  of  contact  with 
reahty.     As  Bleuler  states  it — "A  humanity 
without  autistic  thinking  could  not  have  de- 
veloped .  .  .  the  autistic  contains  most  of 
our  ideals.     The  autistic  forms  of  thinking 
have  for  thousands  of  years  given  form  to 
human  ethics ;  they  have  created  ideals  which 
would  be  impossible  to  logical  thinking,  dim 
ideals  certainly,  but  guiding  stars  towards 

[102] 


IN  LITERATURE 

which    mankind    may    direct    his    groping 
way."  ' 

The  sleeping  beauty  motive,  as  it  runs 
through  imaginative  fairy  literature,  is  also 
a  type  of  autistic  thinking  and  may  be  di- 
vided into  different  forms.  In  the  first,  as 
exemplified  by  Catulle  Mendes's  exquisite 
tale  (The  Sleeping  Beauty),  the  Princess 
had  been  dreaming  beautiful  dreams  for  a 
hundred  years  and  in  her  dreams  she  is 
"adored  by  a  lover  more  handsome  than  any 
of  the  Princes  of  the  earth;  I  do  not  gain 
anything  by  coming  out  of  my  enchantment." 
— Then  the  Princess  goes  on  sleeping  and 
dreaming  again.  In  the  other  form  as  in 
Tennyson's  "Day  Dream,"  the  Princess  is 
awakened  from  her  sleep  by  the  magic  kiss 
of  the  Prince  and  instead  of  returning  to 
sleep,  she  remains  awake, — "And  deep  into 

the  dying  day,  The  liappy  Princess  followed 

hit 
im. 

1  R.  Bleuler —  "Autistic  Thinking" — American  Journal  of 
Intanity  (Spccinl  nuniher). 

[103] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

It  can  thus  be  clearly  seen,  how  the  wish 
fulfillment  and  symbolism  of  fairy  tales  is 
parallel  with  what  occurs  in  neurotic  sub- 
jects. In  the  latter,  autistic  thinking  or 
day-dreaming  may  also  take  two  forms,  the 
one  in  which  the  subject  prefers  to  remain 
shut  in,  as  in  the  stupor  of  dementia  precox, 
and  the  second,  in  which  there  is  a  constant 
struggle  to  break  through  the  day-dreaming 
shell,  as  in  hysteria  and  various  psychoneu- 
roses.  This  final  triumph  can  only  be 
brought  about  through  a  successful  psycho- 
analysis. The  fact  that  the  same  mental 
mechanism  is  found  in  fairy  tales  as  in 
neurotic  subjects,  is  explained  by  the  fact 
that  the  makers  of  fairy  tales  struggled  with 
the  same  conflicts  as  the  nervously  ill  and 
projected  their  conflicts  into  imaginative  lit- 
erature. As  stated  by  Rikhn,'  "Fairy 
tales  are  inventions  of  the  directly  utihzed, 
immediately   conceived   experiences   of   the 

1  Franz    Riklin— "Wish    Fulfillment    and    Symbolism    in 
Fairy  Tales." 

[104] 


IN  LITERATURE 

primitive  human  soul  and  general  human 
tendency  to  wish-fulfillment,  which  we  find 
again  in  modern  fiction  only  somewhat  more 
complicated  and  garbed  in  different  forms." 
In  fact,  dreams  often  resemble  fairy  tales 
and  such  types  of  dreams  may  be  termed 
fairy  tales  from  the  unconscious.  The  sym- 
bolism is  universal;  it  is  constructed  from 
the  unconscious  and  projected  either  in 
primitive  fairy  tales  and  myths  or  in  di'cams 
and  the  various  neuroses. 

The  first  example  of  the  application  of 
psychoanalysis  to  a  novel,  is  Freud's  analy- 
sis of  Wilhelm  Jensen's  "Gradiva."  In 
Oblomoff,  as  in  Gradiva,  the  author  knew 
nothing  of  the  theoretical  or  technical  as- 
pects of  psychoanalysis,  but  tlie  novel  in 
each  case  not  only  accurately  portrayed  a 
neurotic  disease  but  showed  how  the  spon- 
taneous reactions  to  a  love  affair  could  re- 
lieve a  neurosis.  The  "Gradiva"  idea  was 
not  entirely  the  product  of  the  author's  fancy, 

[1  ().'>] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

but  may  occur  in  a  genuine  neurosis,  as  I 
have  the  opportunity  to  observe.  In  this 
case  the  dream  of  a  neurotic  young  girl 
strongly  resembled  in  its  details  and  sym- 
bolism, the  young  archaeologist's  dream  in 
"Gradiva." 

In  another  case,  a  young  neurotic  dreamed 
of  his  physician  seated  at  a  rough  table  carv- 
ing a  lotus  flower  on  a  little  oval  piece  of 
wood,  with  a  small  knife  resembling  a  scal- 
pel. The  symbolism  here  is  clear.  The 
scalpel  indicated  that  the  psychoanalytic 
physician  worked  with  human  material  like 
a  surgeon,  in  fact  it  symbolized  the  psycho- 
analysis as  surgery  of  the  mind,  while 
the  act  of  carving  symbolized  the  psycho- 
analytic treatment.  In  both  cases  the 
dreams  represented  the  repressed  emotions 
of  the  individual,  symbolized  in  the  bas- 
reHef  of  the  dream. 

In  both  the  novels,  too,  as  will  be  subse- 
quently described  in  detail,  the  girl  acted  as 

[106] 


IN  LITERATURE 

the  psychoanalytic  physician;  in  "Gradiva" 
she  cured  the  delusion,  in  "Oblonioff"  she 
almost  completely  relieved  the  shut-in  and 
repressed  personahty.     As  Freud  so  well 
jjtates  it — "The  accomplishment  of  the  task 
is  easier  for  'Gradiva'  than  for  the  physi- 
cian;  she   is   in  this  connection   in  a   posi- 
tion which  might  be  called  ideal  from  many 
points  of  view.     The  physician  who  does  not 
fathom  his  patient  in  advance,  and  does  not 
possess  within  himself,  as  conscious  memory, 
what  is  working  in  the  patient's  unconscious, 
must  call  to  his  aid  a  complicated  technique 
in  order  to  remove  the  disadvantage.     The 
disturbance  disappears  by  being  traced  back 
to  its  origin.     Analysis  brings  cure  at  the 

same  time."  ' 

After  these  long  but  rather  necessary  in- 
troductory remarks,  we  may  now  proceed  to 
the  analysis  of  Oblomoff." 

Oblomoff   was   a   Russian   gentleman   of 

1  S.  Frcud — "Delusion  nnd  Drrain" — 1918. 
2Thp  translation  used  is  by   C.  J.   Hogarth. 

[107] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

moderate  means,  living  in  Petrograd  about 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The 
central  theme  of  the  book  lies  in  the  effort 
of  Oblomoff  himself,  of  his  friends  and  of 
the  girl,  Olga,  to  lead  Oblomoff  out  of  his 
shut-in  or  introverted  life,  into  touch  with 
reality.  In  other  words  the  book  represents 
a  struggle  between  introversion  or  the  tend- 
ency to  live  within  oneself  and  extroversion 
or  the  effort  to  make  interests  flow  outward, 
to  attach  themselves  to  objects  and  to  live 
in  events  in  the  outer  world  of  reality.  It 
is  here  that  the  profound  psychoanalytic 
significance  and  insight  of  the  book  lies. 
The  mental  attitude  towards  his  surround- 
ings, the  inertia,  is  well  shown  in  the  follow- 
ing description : — 

"On  the  walls  and  around  the  pictures 
there  hung  cobwebs  coated  with  dust;  the 
mirrors,  instead  of  reflecting,  would  have 
more  usefully  served  as  tablets  for  recording 
memoranda;  every  mat  was  freely  spotted 

[108] 


IN  LITERATURE 

with  stains;  on  the  sofa  there  lay  a  forgotten 
towel,  and  on  the  table  (as  on  most  morn- 
ings) ,  a  plate,  a  salt  cellar,  a  half  eaten  crust 
of  bread,  and  some  scattered  crumbs— all  of 
which  had  failed  to  be  cleared  away  after 
last  night's  supper.     Indeed,  were  it  not  for 
the  plate,  for  a  recently  smoked  pipe  that 
was  propped  against  the  bed,  and  for  the 
recumbent  form  of  Oblomoff  himself,  one 
might  have  imagined  that  the   place  con- 
tained not  a  single  living  soul,  so  dusty  and 
discolored  did  eveiything  look,  and  so  lack- 
ing were  any  active  traces  of  the  presence  of 
a   human   being.     True,   on   the   whatnots 
there  were  two  or  three  open  books,  while  a 
newspaper  was  tossing  about,  and  the  bureau 
bore  on  its  top  an  inkstand  and  a  few  pens; 
but  the  pages  at  which  the  books  were  open 
were  covered  with  dust  and  beginning  to 
turn  yellow  (thus  i)roving  that  they  had  long 
been  tossed  aside) ,  the  date  of  tlie  newspaper 
belonged  to  the   previous  year,  and  from 

[109] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

the  ink-stand,  whenever  a  pen  happened  to 
be  dipped  therein,  there  arose  with  a  fright- 
ened buzz,  only  a  derelict  fly." 

In  spite  of  this  mental  inertia,  his  apathy, 
these  characteristics  are  superficial.  He 
gave  himself  up  again  to  his  day  dreams,  he 
lives  in  them  and  these  day  dreams  pass  into 
genuine  dreams  in  the  same  imperceptible 
manner  unknown  to  the  dreamer,  as  Raskol- 
nikov  passes  into  an  epileptic  attack. 

The  author  goes  on  to  state  further  de- 
tails of  Oblomoff's  day-dreaming — "But  in 
Oblomoff 's  study,  all  remained  silent  as  the 
tomb.  Zakhar  peeped  through  the  chink  of 
the  door,  and  perceived  that  his  master  was 
lying  prone  on  the  sofa,  with  his  head  rest- 
ing on  the  palm  of  his  hand.  The  valet  en- 
tered the  room. 

"  'Why  have  you  lain  down  again?'  he 
asked. 

"  'Do  not  disturb  me :  cannot  you  see  that 
I  am  reading?'  was  Oblomoff's  abrupt  reply. 

[110] 


IN  LITERATURE 

"  *  Nay,  but  you  ought  to  wash,  and  then 
to  write  that  letter!'  urged  Zakhar,  deter- 
mined not  to  be  shaken  off. 

"  'Yes,  I  suppose  I  ought.  I  will  do  so 
presently.  Just  now  I  am  engaged  in 
thought.' 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  did  read  a  page 
of  the  book  which  was  lying  open — a  page 
which  had  turned  yellow  with  a  month's  ex- 
posure. That  done,  he  laid  it  down  and 
yawned. 

"  'How  it  all  wearies  me !'  he  whispered, 
stretching,  and  then  drawing  up  his  legs. 
Glancing  at  the  ceiling  as  once  more  he  re- 
lapsed into  a  voluptuous  state  of  coma,  he 
said  to  himself  with  a  momentary  sternness: 
'Xq— business  first.'  Then  he  rolled  over, 
and  clasped  his  hands  behind  his  head. 

"As  he  lay  there  he  thought  of  his  plans 
for  improving  his  property.  Swiftly  he 
passed  in  review  certain  grave  and  funda- 
mental   schemes    affecting    his    plow    land 

[111] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

and  its  taxation;  after  which  he  elaborated 
a  new  and  stricter  course  to  be  taken  against 
laziness  and  vagrancy  on  the  part  of  the 
peasantry,  and  then  passed  to  sundry  ideas 
for  ordering  his  own  life  in  the  country. 
"First  of  all,  he  became  engrossed  in  a 
design  for  a  new  house.  Eagerly  he 
lingered  over  a  probable  disposition  of  the 
rooms  and  fixed  in  his  mind  the  dimensions 
of  the  dining  room  and  the  billiard-room, 
and  determined  which  way  the  windows  of 
his  study  must  face.  Indeed,  he  even  gave 
a  thought  to  the  furniture  and  to  the  carpets. 
Next,  he  designed  a  wing  for  the  building, 
calculating  the  nmnber  of  guests  whom  the 
wing  would  accommodate,  and  set  aside 
proper  sites  for  the  stables,  the  coach  houses, 
and  the  servants'  quarters ;  finally  he  turned 
his  attention  to  the  garden.  The  old  lime 
and  oak  trees  should  all  be  left  as  they  were, 
but  the  apple  trees  and  pear  trees  should 
be  done  away  with,  and  succeeded  by  acacias. 

[112] 


IN  LITERATURE 

Also,  he  gave  a  moment's  consideration  to 
the  idea  of  a  park,  but  after  calculating  the 
cost  of  its  upkeep,  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  such  a  luxuiy  would  prove  too  expensive 
—  wherefore  he  passed  to  the  designing  of 
orangeries  and  aviaries. 

"So  vividly  did  these  attractive  visions 
of  the  future  development  of  his  estate  flit 
before  his  eyes  that  he  came  to  fancy  himself 
already  settled  there,  and  engaged  in  wit- 
nessing the  result  of  several  years'  working 
of  his  schemes. 

"On  a  fair  summer's  evening  he  seemed  to 
be  sitting  at  a  tea-table  on  the  terrace  of 
Oblomoffka — sitting  under  the  canopy  of 
leiify  shade  which  the  sun  was  powerless  to 
penetrate.  From  a  long  pipe  in  his  hand 
he  was  lazily  inhaling  smoke,  and  reveling 
both  in  the  delightful  view  which  stretched 
beyond  the  circle  of  trees  and  in  the  coolness 
and  the  quiet  of  his  surroundings.  In  the 
distance  some  fields  were  turning  to  gold,  as 

[113] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

the   sun,   setting  behind  a   famihar  birch- 
grove,  tinged  to  red  the  mirror-hke  surface 
of  the  lake.     From  the  fields  a  mist  had 
risen,  for  the  chill  of  evening  was  falling, 
and  dusk  approaching  apace.     To  his  ears, 
at  intervals,  came  the  clatter  of  peasantry 
as  they  returned  homewards,  and  at  the  en- 
trance gates  the  servants  of  the  estabhsh- 
ment  were  sitting  at  ease,  while  from  their 
vicinity  came  the  sound  of  echoing  voices 
and  laughter,  the  playing  of  balalaiki,^  and 
the  chattering  of  girls  as  they  pursued  the 
sport  of  gorielki.^     Around  him,  also,  his 
little  ones  were  frisking — at  times  climbing 
on  his  knee  and  hanging  about  his  neck; 
while  behind  the  samovar^  was  seated  the 
real  ruler  of  all  that  his  eyes  were  beholding 
— his  divinity,  a  woman,  his  wife!  .  .  .  And 
in  the  dining-room,  a  room  at  once  elegant 
and  simply  appointed — a  cheerful  fire  was 

1  Three  stringed,  lute-like  instruments. 

2  A  sort  of  catch-as-catch-can. 

3  Tea-urn.     (Notes  of  the  translator.) 

[114] 


IN  LITERATURE 

glowing  and  Zakhar  now  promoted  to  the 
dignity  of  a  major-domo,  and  adorned  with 
whiskers  turned  wholly  gray,  was  laying  a 
large,  round  table  to  a  pleasant  accompany- 
ing tinkle  of  crystal  and   silver  as  he  ar- 
ranged, here  a  decanter  and  there  a  fork. 
"Presently  the  dreamer  saw  his  wife  and 
himself   sit   down   to   a   bountiful   supper. 
Yes,  and  with  them  was  Schtoltz,  the  com- 
rade of  his  youth,  his  unchanging  friend, 
with  other  well-known  faces;  lastly,  he  could 
see   the   inmates   of  the   home   retiring  to 

rest.  .  .  . 

"Oblomoff 's  features  blushed  with  dehght 
at  the  vision.  So  clear,  so  vivid,  so  poetical 
was  it  all  that  for  a  moment  he  lay  with  his 
face  buried  in  the  sofa  cushions.  Suddenly 
there  had  come  upon  him  a  dim  longing  for 
love  and  happiness;  suddenly  he  had  become 
athirst  for  the  fields  and  hills  of  his  native 
place,  for  his  home,  for  his  wife,  for  chil- 
dren— 

[115] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

"After  lying  face  downwards  for  a  mo'' 
ment  or  two,  he  turned  upon  his  back.  His 
features  were  alight  with  generous  emotion, 
and  for  the  time  being,  he  was  happy. 

"Again  the  charming  seductiveness  of  the 
sleep-waking  enfolded  him  in  its  embrace. 
He  pictured  to  himself  a  small  colony  of 
friends  who  should  come  and  settle  in  the 
villages  and  farms  within  a  radius  of  fifteen 
or  twenty  versts  of  his  country  house. 
Every  day  they  should  visit  one  another's 
houses — whether  to  dine  or  to  sup  or  to 
dance;  until  everywhere  around  him  he 
w^ould  be  able  to  see  only  bright  faces 
framed  in  sunny  days — faces  which  should 
be  ever  free  of  care  and  wrinkles,  and  round, 
and  merry,  and  ruddy,  and  double-chinned, 
and  of  unfailing  appetite.  In  all  his  neigh- 
borhood there  should  be  constant  summer 
tide,  constant  gayety,  unfailing  good  fare, 
the  joys  of  perennial  lassitude. 

"  'My  God,  my  God !'  he  cried  in  the  f ull- 

[116] 


IN  LITERATURE 

iiess  of  his  delight :  and  with  that  he  awoke. 
Once  more  to  his  ears  came  the  cries  of  the 
hawkers  in  the  courtyard  as  they  vended 
coal,  sand,  and  potatoes :  once  more  he  could 
hear  some  one  begging  for  subscriptions  to 
l)uild  a  church;  once  more  from  a  neighbor- 
ing building  which  was  in  the  course  of  erec- 
tion there  streamed  a  babel  of  workmen's 
shouts,  mingled  with  the  clatter  of  tools." 
The  reverie  gradually  faded  into  a  real  day 
dream,  which  has  all  the  characteristics  of  a 
genuine  dream— a  wish  fulfillment  projected 

into  the  future. 

The  medical  advice  for  this  neurosis  is  in- 
teresting, but  inaccurate,  according  to  our 
modern  standards. 

"You  must  avoid  emotion  of  every  kind, 
for  tliat  sort  of  thing  is  sure  to  militate 
against  a  successful  cure.  Try,  rather,  to 
divert  yourself  with  riding,  with  dancing, 
with  moderate  exercise  in  tlie  open  air,  and 
with  pleasant  conversation— more  especially 

[117] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

conversation  with  the  opposite  sex.  These 
things  were  designed  to  make  your  heart 
beat  more  hghtly,  and  to  experience  none 
but  agreeable  emotions.  Again,  you  must 
lay  aside  all  reading  and  writing.  Rent  a 
villa  which  faces  south  and  lies  embowered 
in  flowers,  and  surround  yourself  also  with 
an  atmosphere  of  music  and  women."  The 
doctor  then  goes  on  to  give  the  advice  of 
traveling  for  curing  the  neurosis,  not  realiz- 
ing that  a  neurotic  carries  his  conflicts  with 
him  wherever  he  goes. 

In  his  dreams  he  regresses  to  his  whole 
past  life,  he  reviews  it  from  childhood  up, 
just  as  a  neurotic  individual  always  does. 
This  affords  the  author  an  opportunity  to 
make  clear  the  background  out  of  which  the 
shut-in  personality  develox)ed  and  in  one  as- 
tonishing passage,  the  whole  of  Oblomoff's 
emotional  development  is  summarized  and 
described. 

"Moreover,  should  the  boy  at  any  time 

[118] 


IN  LITERATURE 

want  anything,  he  had  three  or  four  sen- 
ants  to  do  his  bidding;  and  in  this  fashion 
he  never  learnt  what  it  was  to  do  a  single 
thing  for  himself. 

"Yet  in  the  end  his  parents'  fond  sohci- 
tude  wearied  him,  for  at  no  time  should  he 
even   cross   the   courtyard,   or   descend   the 
staircase,  without  hearing  himself  followed 
by  shouts  of  'Where  are  you  going  to,  Illya?' 
or  'How  can  you  do  that?'  or  'You  will  fall 
and  hurt  yourself !'     Thus  pampered  hke  an 
exotic  plant  in  a  greenhouse,  he  grew  up 
slowly  and  drowsily,  and  in  a  ^ay  which 
turned  his  energies  inward,  and  gradually 
caused  them  to  wither." 

Like  Zoc  in  Jensen's  novel  "Gradiva," 
Olga  has  upon  Oblomoff  the  effect  of  a  psy- 
cho"analysis.  She  acts  upon  his  repressed 
and  introverted  life  in  a  way  a  chemical  fer- 
ment or  catalyzer  acts,  she  wishes  to  attract 
to  herself  the  repressed  and  shut-in  emotions 
of  C)l)lomoff.     But  as  we  shall  clearly  see, 

[119] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

she  only  partially  succeeds,  for  Oblomoff  is 
only  incompletely  drawn  out  of  the  prison- 
walls  of  his  shut-in  mind  and  then  his  neu- 
rosis sinks  again  to  a  lower  cultural  level,  he 
reverts  to  the  purely  nutritional  tendencies 
of  childhood.  The  love  affair  is  thus  de- 
scribed. .  .  . 

"From  that  time  forth  she  lived  in  him 
alone,  while  he,  for  his  part,  racked  his  brains 
to  avoid  incurring  the  loss  of  her  esteem. 
Whenever  she  detected  in  his  soul — and  she 
could  probe  that  soul  very  deeply — the  least 
trace  of  its  former  characteristics,  she  would 
work  for  him  to  heap  reproaches  for  his  leth- 
argy and  fear  of  life.  Just  as  he  was  about 
to  yawn,  as  he  was  actually  opening  his 
mouth  for  the  purpose,  her  astonished  glance 
would  transfix  him,  and  cause  his  mouth  to 
snap  with  a  click  which  jarred  his  teeth. 
Still  more  did  he  hasten  to  resume  his  alac- 
rity whenever  he  perceived  that  his  lassitude 
was  communicating  itself  to  her,  and  threat- 

[120] 


IX  LITERATURE 

ening  to  render  her  cold  and  contemptuous. 
Instantly  he  would  undergo  a  revival  of 
strenuous  activity;  and  then  the  shadow  he- 
tween  them  would  disappear,  and  mutual 
sympathy  once  more  beat  in  strong,  clear 
accord.  Yet  this  solicitude  on  his  part  had 
not,  as  yet,  its  origin  in  the  magic  ring  of 
love.  Indeed  the  effect  of  his  charmed  toils 
was  a  negative  rather  than  a  positive.  True, 
he  no  longer  slept  all  day — on  the  contrary, 
he  rode,  read,  walked,  and  even  thought  of 
resuming  his  writing  and  his  agricultural 
schemes;  yet  the  ultimate  direction,  the  in- 
most significance,  of  his  life  still  remained 
confined  to  the  sphere  of  good  intentions. 
Particularly  disturbing  did  he  find  it  when- 
ever Olga  plied  him  with  some  particular 
question  and  demanded  of  him,  as  of  a  pro- 
fessor, full  satisfaction  of  her  curiosity. 

"This  occurred  frequently,  and  arose  not 
out  of  pedantry  on  lier  part,  but  a  desire 
to  know  the  right  and  wrong  of  things. 

[121] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

"At  times  a  given  question  would  absorb 
her  even  to  the  point  of  forgetting  her  con- 
sideration for  Oblomoff.  For  instance,  on 
one  occasion,  when  she  had  besought  his  opin- 
ion concerning  double  stars,  and  he  was  in- 
cautious enough  to  refer  her  to  Herschel,  he 
was  dispatched  to  purchase  the  great  author- 
ity's book,  and  commanded  to  read  it 
through,  and  to  explain  the  same  to  her  full 
satisfaction.  On  another  occasion  he  was 
rash  enough  to  let  slip  a  word  or  two  con- 
cerning various  schools  of  painting:  where- 
fore he  had  to  undergo  another  week's  read- 
ing and  explaining  and  also  to  pay  sundry 
visits  to  the  Hermitage  Museum.  In  the 
end  how  he  trembled  whenever  she  asked 
him  a  question!" 

This  is  the  defeated  transference  of 
Oblomoff;  here  it  is  that  love  fails.  This 
emotional  transference,  which  is  really  only 
the  acknowledged  sympathy  between  two  in- 
dividuals, forms  the  basis  of  all  love  affairs, 

[122] 


IN  LITERATURE 

and  love  affairs  often  have  an  unhappy  end- 
ing because  this  transference  fails.  Why? 
Because  in  every  love  affair  it  is  necessary 
for  one  of  the  parties  involved  to  cut  loose 
from  the  moorings  or  attachments  to  the 
members  of  their  own  family,  to  tlieir  blood 
relations.  Where  this  fails  or  only  partially 
succeeds,  there  arises  both  a  conscious  and 
unconscious  mental  conflict  during  the 
period  of  the  love  affair  and  in  all  these 
cases  it  leads  to  a  severe  neurotic  anxiety. 
It  is  for  this  reason  so  many  young  people 
have  a  so-called  "nervous  breakdown"  dur- 
ing a  period  of  betrothal;  the  acknowledged 
sympathy,  the  transference  between  the 
two  sexes  remaining  incomplete.  In  the 
young  man  it  is  incomplete  because  of  too 
stnjng  attachment  to  the  mother,  in  the 
young  woman  because  of  too  strong  attach- 
ment to  the  father.  While  in  these  cases, 
the  neurotic  anxiety  is  conscious,  yet  the 
mental  conflict,  tlie  over-attacliment  to  the 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

parent  of  the  opposite  sex,  is  very  strong 
and  deeply  imbedded  in  the  unconscious 
where  it  can  only  be  detected  through  a  psy- 
choanalysis. As  a  rule  this  over-attachment 
is  very  clearly  seen  in  dreams,  where  the 
parent  appears  in  a  more  or  less  disguised 
form  or  sometimes  in  a  condensation,  like  a 
composite  photograph,  of  the  parent  and  the 
loved  one. 

This  over-attachment  to  the  family  group 
is  very  beautifully  portrayed  in  Oblomoff's 
first  dream.  He  dreamed  that  he  was  seven 
years  old  and  awoke  in  his  little  cot  at  home. 

"Oblomoff's  nurse  had  long  been  waiting 
for  him  to  awake,  and  now  she  began  to 
draw  on  for  him  his  stockings.  This  he  re- 
fused to  allow  her  to  do:  which  end  he  at- 
tained by  frisking  and  kicking,  while  she 
tried  to  catch  hold  of  his  leg,  and  the  pair 
laughed  joyously  together.  Finally,  she 
lifted  him  on  her  lap,  and  washed  him  and 
combed  his  hair;  after  which  she  conducted 

[124] 


IN  LITERATURE 

him  to  his  mother.  On  seeing  his  long  dead 
parent,  the  sleeping  Oblomoff's  form  trem- 
bled with  delight  and  affection,  and  from 
under  his  unconscious  eyelids  there  stole  and 
remained  two  burning  tears.  .  .  . 

"Upon  him  his  mother  showered  affection- 
ate kisses,  and  gazed  at  him  with  tender  so- 
licitude to  see  whether  his  eyes  were  clear 
and  healthy.  Does  he  in  any  way  ail?  she 
inquired.  Had  he  (this  to  his  nurse)  slept 
quietly,  or  had  he  lain  awake  all  night?  had 
he  had  any  dreams?  Had  he  been  at  all 
feverish  ?  Lastly,  she  took  him  by  the  hand, 
and  led  him  to  the  sacred  ikon.  Kneeling 
with  one  arm  around  his  form,  she  prompted 
him  in  the  words  of  the  prayers,  while  the 
boy  repeated  them  with  scanty  attention, 
since  he  preferred,  rather,  to  turn  his  eyes  to 
the  windows,  whence  the  freshness  and  scent 
of  a  lilac-tree  was  flooding  the  room. 

"  'Shall  we  go  for  a  walk,  to-day,  mama?' 
suddenly  he  asked. 

[12.5] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 


t(  i^ 


'Yes,  darling,'  she  replied  hastily,  but 
kept  her  gaze  fixed  upon  the  ikon,  and  hur- 
riedly concluded  the  sacred  formula.  Yet 
into  the  words  of  that  formula  her  very  soul 
was  projected,  whereas  the  little  one  re- 
peated them  only  in  nonchalant  fashion." 

Thus  Oblomoff  is  merely  autistic  thinking 
and  his  dreams  are  regressions  to  the  earlier 
and  happier  days  of  his  childhood,  when  he 
was  moored  to  the  various  members  of  the 
family, — that  is  the  dreams  were  genuine 
wish  fulfillments.  He  is  unhappy  now,  he 
lives  within  himself  because  he  is  no  longer 
a  child,  his  real  childhood  is  skmibering  in 
his  adult  unconscious  and  only  appears  like 
a  living  being  in  the  form  of  a  dream.  The 
disease  "the  apathetic  malady  of  Oblo- 
moff ka"  is  what  would  be  termed  in  psycho- 
pathology  an  introversion  neurosis,  which 
has  all  degrees  of  intensity  and  which  is  man- 
ifested by  the  individual  slowly  shutting 
himself   off  more   and   more   from   reality, 

[126] 


IN  LITERATURE 

finally  sinking  into  and  living  completely  in 
day  dreams.  Under  these  conditions,  real- 
ity loses  its  hold  and  the  inner  world  of  un- 
reality finally  assumes  a  dominating  power. 
The  result  is  inevitahle,  a  mental  inertia  a 
lack  of  will  power,  what  the  French  term 
aboulia. 

As  Jung  expresses  it — "Whoever  intro- 
verts, that  is  to  say,  who  ever  takes  away 
from  a  real  object  without  putting  in  its 
place  a  real  compensation  is  overtaken  by 
the  inevitable  results  of  introversion."  ^ 

So  it  was  with  Oblomoff.  The  fatalistic 
inevitable  results  of  his  introversion  are  ex- 
pressed in  the  following  passage.  .  .  . 

"Such  the  philosophy  which  our  Plato  of 
Oblomoffka  elaborated  for  the  purpose  of 
lulling  himself  to  sleep  amid  the  problems 
and  the  stern  demands  of  duty  and  of  des- 
tiny. He  had  been  bred  and  nourished  to 
play  the  part,  not  of  a  gladiator  in  the  arena 

1  C.  CI.  Jung  "Psycholofry  of  llic  Unconscious" — 1916. 

[V27-] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

but  of  a  peaceful  onlooker  at  the  struggle. 
Never  could  his  diffident,  lethargic  spirit 
have  faced  either  the  raptures  or  the  blows 
of  life.  Hence  he  expressed  only  one  of  its 
aspects,  and  had  no  mind  either  to  succeed  in 
it,  or  to  change  anything  in  it,  or  to  repent 
of  his  decision.  As  the  years  flowed  on,  both 
emotions  and  repining  came  to  manifest 
themselves  at  rarer  and  rarer  intervals,  until, 
by  quiet,  imperceptibl-e  degrees  he  became 
finally  interned  in  the  plain,  otiose  tomb  of 
retirement  which  he  had  fashioned  w^ith  his 
own  hands,  even  as  desert  anchorites  who 
have  turned  from  the  world  dig  for  them- 
selves a  material  sepulcher.  Of  reorganiz- 
ing his  estate,  and  removing  hither  with  his 
household,  he  had  given  up  all  thought. 
The  steward  whom  Schtoltz  had  placed  in 
charge  of  Oblomoff  ka,  regularly  sent  him  the 
income  therefrom,  and  the  peasantry  prof- 
fered him  flour  and  poultry  at  Christmas- 

[128] 


IN  LITERATURE 

tide,  and  everything  on  the  estate  was  pros- 
pering." 

Thus  his  introversion  has  phinged  him  into 
a  lower  cultural  level  where  the  sublimations 
of  civilized  society,  of  intellect,  of  logical 
thinking  mean  nothing  to  him.  His  life,  his 
reactions,  his  elan  vitale,  to  use  the  Berg- 
son  ian  phrase,  became  a  mere  nutritional 
craving.  .  .  .  "He  has  succeeded  in  escap- 
ing life,  in  driving  a  bargain  with  it,  and  en- 
suring himself  an  inevitable  seclusion." 
How  true  this  phrase  is.  .  .  .  "He  suc- 
ceeded in  escaping  life."  For  psychoanaly- 
sis shows  that  that  is  the  purpose  of  intro- 
version, to  escape  the  conflicts  of  life,  of 
reality,  by  building  a  mental  Chinese  wall 
around  the  mind.  In  fact,  a  neurotic  is  so 
inaccessi})le  because  of  this  Chinese  wall. 
The  neurotic  turns  away  from  reality,  he 
takes  a  flight  in  disease,  runs  under  cover  so 
to  si)eak  and  thus  secures  safety.     Introver- 

[120] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

sion  is  a  method  of  escaping  from  reality. 
Concerning  Olga's  failure  to  draw  Oblo- 
moff  out  of  his  introversion,  Oblomoflf  him- 
self gives  the  hint  of  the  reason  of  his  failure 
in  the  following  words— "Alas !"  was  Oblo- 
moff's  repetition,  "Olga  wishes  forever  to  be 
on  the  move.     Apparently  she  cares  nothing 
about  dreaming  over  the  poetical  phases  of 
hfe,  or  losing  herself  in  reveries.     She  is 
like  Schtoltz.     It  would  seem  as  though  the 
two  had  conspired  to  live  life  at  top  speed." 
It  seems,  therefore,  fair  to  assume,  that  if 
the  character  of  Olga  had  been  a  little  more 
ideal,  a  little  more  poetic  in  connection  with 
her  practical  ability,  she  would  have  suc- 
ceeded.    Therefore     the     love-transference 
only  partially  appealed  to  Oblomoff;  only 
partially  awakened  his  emotions.     He  could 
not  come  into  contact  with  the  more  sub- 
limated aspects  of  love,  he  could  not  be  re- 
awakened   from   the    slumber    of    his    idle 

[130] 


IN  LITERATURE 

thinking  and  so  regressed  to  that  childhood 
to  which  his  day-dreams  were  totally  at- 
tached. He  went  the  path  of  least  resist- 
ance and  slipped  back  into  his  introversion; 
in  the  words  of  the  author,  he  was  "deter- 
mined to  be  powerless."  A  year  and  a  half 
later,  Oblomoff  was  sitting  in  his  dark, 
murky  rooms,  in  the  same  condition  as  when 
he  was  first  introduced  to  us. 

So  Oblomoff  married  his  landlady  because 
his  nutritional  cravings  and  desires  drew 
him  back  to  the  childhood  of  his  dreams. 
Food  alone,  and  not  the  higher  sublimated 
pleasures  of  love  and  intellectual  interest, 
were  self  sufficient  for  him.  He  does  not 
have  to  go  beyond  his  own  body  for  satis- 
faction, his  pleasures  are  found  in  the  expec- 
tation of  eating  and  in  the  taste  of  food. 
He  thus  becomes  tremendously  introverted, 
shut-in,  h'ke  those  cases  of  dementia  precox 
wliich  in  the  terminal  stages  of  their  disease 

[i;3i] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

are  interested  only  in  the  immediate  pleas- 
ures of  the  body.  Oblomoff's  surroundings 
are  described  as  follows: 

"Hams  hung  from  the  ceiling  of  the  store- 
room (to  avoid  damage  by  mice),  and,  with 
them,  cheeses,  loaves  of  sugar,  dried  fish,  and 
bags  of  nuts  and  preserved  mushrooms.  On 
a  table  stood  tubs  of  butter,  pots  of  sour 
cream,  baskets  of  apples,  and  God  knows 
what  else  besides,  for  it  would  require  the 
pen  of  a  second  Homer  to  describe  in  full, 
and  in  detail,  all  that  had  become  accumu- 
lated in  the  various  corners  and  on  the  vari- 
ous floors  of  this  little  nest  of  domestic  life. 

"Nor  was  his  coffee  prepared  for  him  with 
less  care,  attention,  and  skill  than  had  been 
the  case  before  he  had  changed  his  old  quar- 
ters for  his  present  ones.  Giblet  soup,  mac- 
aroni with  Parmesan  cheese,  soup  concocted 
of  kvass  and  herbs,  home-fed  pullets  .  .  . 
all  these  dishes  succeeded  one  another  in  reg- 
ular rotation,  and  by  so  doing  helped  to  make 

[132] 


IN  LITERATURE 

agreeable  breaks  in  tbe  otberwise  monoto- 
nous routine  of  tbe  little  establishment."  .  .  . 
His  mental  condition  is  portrayed  in  the 
following  passage — 

"Thus  Oblomoff  lived  in  a  sort  of  gilded 
cage — a  cage  within  which,  as  in  a  diorama, 
the  only  changes  included  alternations  of 
night  and  day  and  of  the  seasons.  Of 
changes,  the  disturbing  kind  which  stir  up 
the  sediment  from  the  bottom  of  life's  bowl — 
a  sediment  only  too  frequently  both  bitter 
and  obnoxious — there  were  none.  Ever 
since  the  day  when  Schtoltz  had  cleared  him 
of  debt,  and  Tarentiev  and  Tarentiev's 
friend  liad  taken  themselves  off  for  good, 
every  adverse  element  had  disappeared  from 
Oblomoff's  existence,  and  there  surrounded 
him  onlv  «:ood,  kind,  sensible  folk  who  had 
agreed  to  underpin  his  existence  with  theirs, 
and  to  help  him  not  to  notice  it,  nor  to  feel 
it,  as  it  j)iirsucd  its  even  course.  Every- 
thing was,  as  it  were,  at  peace,  and  of  that 

[laaj 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

peace,  that  inertia,  Oblomoff  represented 
the  complete,  the  natural,  embodiment  and 
expression.  After  passing  in  review  and 
considering  his  mode  of  life,  he  had  sunk 
deeper  and  deeper  therein,  until  finally  he 
had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  he  had  no 
farther  to  go,  and  nothing  farther  to  seek, 
and  that  the  ideal  of  his  life  would  best  be 
preserved  where  he  was — albeit  without 
poetry,  without  those  finer  shades  where- 
with his  imagination  had  once  painted  for 
him  a  spacious,  careless  course  of  manorial 
life  on  his  own  estate  among  his  own  peas- 
antry and  servants." 

In  his  introversion,  he  retraces  his  mental 
development,  he  regresses  to  his  childhood 
in  his  dreams  because  he  loves  his  childhood, 
because  he  was  happy  then,  he  wishes  to  be 
there  again  and  since  he  cannot  have  his 
childhood  in  reality  he  has  it  in  his  dreams. 
He  does  not  identify  himself  with  his  en- 

[134] 


IN  LITERATURE 

vironnient,  his  environment  is  undisturbed 
and  means  nothing  to  him. 

Oblomoff  is  merely  an  exaggerated  form 
of  wliat  often  tempore  rily  occurs  in  normal 
individuals,  but  here  in  the  latter  without 
any  final  breaking  away  from  reality  because 
of  the  perfect  balancing  between  logical 
thinking  and  autistic  thinking. 

This  retreat  or  flight  from  reality  has  in 
addition,  a  profound  social  significance. 
All  of  us  are  more  or  less  dominated  by  day 
dreams  and  these  day  dreams  technically  ex- 
pressed as  autistic  thinking,  are  really  the 
fulfillment  of  our  innermost  wishes,  wishes 
which  are  impossible  of  fulfillment  in  reality. 
There  is  thus  a  withdrawal  from  reality  but 
with  isolated  points  of  contact  in  the  nor- 
mally balanced  individual.  Life  is  a  conflict 
between  reality  and  retreat  from  it,  particu- 
larly il"  the  reality  becomes  unbearable. 

It  would  seem  then,   without   stretching 

[135] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

the  comparison  too  far,  as  if  the  dreams  were 
the  only  reahties,  since  in  them  are  fulfilled 
our  innermost  desires  and  ambitions,  and  all 
our  perplexities  and  conflicts  are  solved  ac- 
cording to  our  heart's  desire.  This  is  the 
hypothesis  of  Freud  .  .  .  namely,  that  all 
mental  activities  correspond  to  two  funda- 
mental principles  .  .  .  the  "pleasure  prin- 
ciple" and  the  "reality  principle."  The 
"pleasure  principle"  is  for  the  purpose  of 
seeking  pleasure  and  avoiding  pain  and  it  is 
here  that  the  concept  of  repression  steps  in. 
The  "reality  principle"  is  the  concept  of  ad- 
justment to  reality,  either  by  contact  with  it 
or  by  withdrawing  from  it,  and  by  reality  we 
mean  the  mental  as  well  as  the  physical 
world. 

All  explorers,  all  those  who  with  a  scien- 
tific impetus  follow  what  is  called  the  spirit 
of  adventure,  are  really  those  who  retreat 
from  reality  by  seeking  new  worlds.  There 
is  this  exception  however — they  balance  their 

[136] 


IN  LITERATURE 

logical  thinking  with  their  autistic  thinking, 
they  keep  their  points  of  contact  thus  saving 
themselves  from  the  fate  of  the  neurotic  or 
the  stuporous  patient. 

It  is  a  question  whether  complete  intro- 
version can  ever  lead  to  a  favorahle  issue  and 
liberate  the  enoi-mous  psychical  energy  which 
seems  to  be  latent  in  the  unconscious.  In- 
troversion is  always  dangerous  in  the  sense 
that  the  inner  cravings  of  man  possess  a 
monstrous  laziness  and  consequently  any 
tendency  to  lose  oneself  in  introversion  may 
lead  to  indolence  with  its  inability  for  the 
production  of  creative  work. 


[137] 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    SUBLIMATION    OF    REPRESSED    EMOTIONS 

We  are  now  prepared  to  discuss  how  re- 
pressions are  removed,  in  other  words,  how 
does  a  neurosis  get  well? 

One  of  the  greatest  problems  of  psycho- 
analysis may  be  stated  in  a  few  words — 
namely,  how  does  psychoanalysis  work?  It 
is  generally  admitted  that  it  is  not  due  to 
suggestion,  since  in  all  psychoanalytic  treat- 
ment, in  which  careful  attention  is  paid  to, 
technique,  the  element  of  suggestion  is  care- 
fully avoided.  Neither  can  it  be  said  to  be 
due  to  explanation,  for  to  explain  the  un- 
conscious source  of  the  nervous  illness  or  to 
enter  into  a  discussion  of  the  dreams,  fre- 
quently produces  a  feeling  of  antagonism 
(resistance),  which  may  well  nigh  prove  in- 

[138] 


SUBLIMATION  OF  EMOTIONS 

surmountable  in  the  cure  of  a  nervous  ill- 
ess. 

It  is  easy  to  talk  of  the  breaking  down  of 
resistance,  of  transference,  of  sublimation,  of 
abreaction,^  but  these  are  the  end-results  of 
psychoanalysis  rather  than  its  inner  mechan- 
ism and  do  not  explain  the  real  reason  for  the 
working  of  the  psychoanalytic  procedure. 
The  test  then  of  all  psychoanalysis  is  the 
pragmatic  one. 

It  will  be  admitted  by  all  psychoanalysts, 
that  psychoanalysis,  used  in  the  sense  con- 
ceived by  Freud,  is  directed  primarily  to  the 
unconscious,  for  dreams,  symptomatic  ac- 
tions, the  wide  range  of  the  neuroses  them- 
selves, have  their  origin  in  the  unconscious. 
The  so-called  resistance  is  merely  the  force 
wliich  prevents  a  deep  penetration  into  the 

>  Hy  al)reuctic)n  is  nu-jiiit  the  irn-ntal  processes  of  work- 
Injf  off  a  pent-up  emotion  by  living  throuph  it  apain  in 
fetlinjr  and  action.  If  con)i)lett'Iy  abreactiHl,  a  repressed 
emotion  is  diffused  and  works  itself  off  harmlessly,  if  not 
coniplftely  al)reacted,  it  may  lead  to  states  of  mental  dis- 
sociation. 

[139] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

unconscious,  which  for  certain  purposes  does 
not  wish  to  be  revealed.  It  defends  itself 
against  being  brought  into  the  hght  of  con- 
scious thinking. 

Transference  on  the  other  hand  represents 
the  opposite  of  resistance,  the  ability  to 
penetrate  into  the  deeper  strata  of  the  un- 
conscious. Psychoanalysis  then  is  the  tech- 
nical instrument,  if  it  may  be  so  called,  used 
for  the  purpose  of  penetrating  or  digging 
into  the  unconscious.  If  the  term  may  be 
permitted  every  psychoanalyst  is  a  paleo- 
psychologist,  whose  duty  it  is  to  penetrate 
into  the  historic  past  of  the  individual  psyche, 
and  to  explore  the  primitive  mentality. 

It  has  been  generally  admitted  through 
study  of  dreams,  and  of  the  taboos  and  neu- 
roses of  primitive  men,  that  the  unconscious, 
from  which  all  neuroses  take  their  origin,  is 
archaic  and  barbaric,  in  fact,  all  neuroses  are 
expressions  of  this  barbaric  unconscious. 
The  presence  of  the  (Edipus  motive  as  an 

[140] 


SUBLIMATION  OF  EMOTIONS 

expression  of  this  archaic  and  unethical  un- 
conscious is  sufficient  proof  of  the  uncultural 
nature  of  the  unconscious.  The  unconscious 
originated  not  only  in  the  childhood  of  man, 
but  because  it  contains  so  many  repressed 
motives,  may  also  be  said  to  have  originated 
in  the  childhood  of  the  world.  These  re- 
pressed motives  are  revealed  in  dreams,  as 
during  sleep  the  censorship  of  social  inhibi- 
tion is  removed.  There  arise  then  dreams 
of  revenge,  the  symbolic  dream  of  flying  and 
also  the  non-embarrassment  dream  of  being 
insufficiently  clothed. 

The  dreams  offer  the  best  and  it  might  be 
said,  the  incontrovertible  evidence  of  these 
repressed  feelings,  which,  since  they  cannot 
be  fulfilled  in  reality,  are  fulfilled  either  in 
dreams  or  in  neurf)tic  disturbances.  Thus 
a  dream  in  every  case,  is  merely  a  fulfilled 
repressed  wish  of  the  unconscious.  As 
stated  by  Hank  and  Sachs:'     "A  searching 

i"The    Significance    of    Psychoanalysis    for    the    Mental 
Sciences." 

[141] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

investigation  revealed  sufficient  grounds  to 
justify  the  supposition  that  the  collective 
primitive  forms  of  mental  life,  as  they  exist 
in  the  child  and  remain  preserved  in  the  un- 
conscious of  adults,  are  identical  within  cer- 
tain limits  with  the  processes  of  the  mental 
life  of  the  savage,  so  far  as  these  may  hold 
as  reflections  of  primitive  humanity." 

In  the  unconscious  is  condensed  and  capit- 
ulated the  cultural  history  of  mankind.  As 
the  different  sti-ata  of  the  earth  have  revealed 
to  human  paleontologists  different  cultural 
levels,  so  to  the  psychoanalyst,  the  study  of 
dreams  reveals  t-lie  different  cultural  levels 
in  the  unconscious.  Any  description  of  the 
unconscious  therefore  must  be  expressed, 
not  in  the  horizontal  terms,  but  as  being 
composed  of  different  stratigraphic  levels. 

All  who  have  worked  in  psychoanalysis 
have  been  impressed  with  the  fact  that  the 
motives  or  wishes  of  the  unconscious  are 
barbaric  and  unethical.     The  dream  offers 

[142] 


SUBLIMATION  OF  EMOTIONS 

us  the  best  evidence  of  this  barbarism,  since 
the  dreani-formation  takes  place  exclusively 
in  the  unconscious.  The  dream  reveals  very 
primitive  mental  states,  which  for  years  have 
been  more  or  less  suppressed  and  dormant. 
Thus  the  unconscious  contains  the  same  de- 
sires which  existed  consciously  in  our  very 
remote  ancestors.  The  dream  reveals  the 
mind  of  prehistoric  man,  rather  than  the  hu- 
man mind  as  it  has  been  rationalized  and 
changed  through  culture  and  education  and 
through  the  evidence  offered  by  the  dream 
it  is  possible  to  reconstruct  the  entire  human 
mind. 

If  then  the  unconscious  reveals  very  primi- 
tive and  barbaric  ways  of  thinking  and  if  the 
only  wishes  at  its  disposal  are  more  or  less 
unethical  and  anti-social,  several  questions 
of  great  practical  importance  present  them- 
selves. Can  these  unconscious  motives  be 
()l)literatcd '.  Can  they  be  raised  to  a  higher 
cultural   levcH     If  these   (juestions  can   be 

rU3] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

answered  in  the  affirmative,  then  we  must 
look  for  such  evidence  in  the  dream,  which 
is  purely  the  product  of  the  unconscious. 

It  is  now  a  matter  of  common  observation 
that  psychoanalysis  can  actually  change  the 
nature  and  motives  of  a  subject's  dreams/ 
Psychoanalysis,  therefore,  does  for  the  un- 
conscious of  the  individual  what  education 
does  for  the  race.  The  best  evidence  of  this 
cultural  advancement  in  the  unconscious  can 
be  demonstrated  in  dreams. 

That  psychoanalysis  is  certainly  effective 
in  raising  the  primitive  motives  of  the  uncon- 
scious, can  be  shown  by  the  following  facts, 
taken  from  a  psychoneurotic  case  which  was 

1  Attention  was  first  called  to  this  phenomenon,  so  valu- 
able for  a  clear  understanding  of  the  workings  of  psycho- 
analysis and  its  prognostic  value,  in  a  paper  published  by 
me  in  the  New  York  Medical  Journal  for  March  23,  1913. 
It  was  later  further  elaborated  in  my  statistical  study  of 
psychoanalytic  treatment  and  finally  summarized  in  my 
paper  on  "Hermaphroditic  Dreams"  {Psychoanalytic  Be- 
^igiv — Oct.  1917),  where  it  was  stated  that  psychoanalysis 
can  actually  change  the  unconscious  bi-sexual  tendency  of 
man,  in  the  same  way  that  it  can  raise  our  primitive  un- 
conscious traits  to  a  higher  cultural  level. 

[144] 


SUBLIMATION  OF  EMOTIONS 

carefully  studied,  over  a  long  period  of  time. 
A  young  man  of  high  intelligence  and  with 
a  cultured  social  background,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  psychoanalysis,  presented  very 
primitive  types  of  dreams,  showing  that  his 
neurosis  was  the  expression  of  barbaric  re- 
pressed wishes.  After  some  months  of 
treatment,  another  dream  of  the  same  type 
occurred,  in  which  a  marked  censorship  was 
shown  and  an  attempt  to  neutralize  the  fan- 
tasy, although  at  the  beginning  of  the  psy- 
choanalysis he  knew  intellectually  about  the 
censorship,  but  was  unable  to  utilize  it. 
This  change  as  the  result  of  psychoanalysis 
is  interesting,  for  it  demonstrates  that  the 
unconscious  had  been  raised  to  a  higher  cul- 
tural level,  where  censorship  became  active 
and  acted  like  a  psychological  taboo. 

The  original  feeling  in  this  case  proved 
that  the  patient's  unconscious  was  the  reposi- 
tory of  exceedingly  primitive  cnwtions  and 
wishes;  emotions,  antedating  the  taboo,  be- 

[U5] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

cause  no  psychological  barrier  had  been  de- 
veloped or  erected.  It  is  the  unconscious 
that  has  changed  rather  than  the  censor;  it 
has  undergone  a  higher  evolution  as  a  result 
of  psychoanalysis. 

This  may  be  taken  as  the  working  of  psy- 
choanalysis. A  neurosis  is  the  expression, 
usually  symbolic,  of  the  barbaric  motives  of 
the  unconscious.  Psychoanalysis  has  an 
educational  influence  in  that  the  method 
raises  the  unconscious  to  a  higher  cultural 
level  and  sublimation. 

In  this  modification  of  the  unconscious  by 
psychoanalysis,  the  motives  are  so  changed 
that  they  become  really  civilized,  in  fact  a 
complete  analysis  is  a  complete  regeneration. 

When  a  neurosis  gets  well  spontaneously, 
without  the  aid  of  psychoanalysis,  it  is  very 
doubtful  if  there  is  a  complete  recovery  in 
the  genuine  psychological  sense.  By  this 
is  meant,  that  after  a  patient  plunges  into 
a  neurosis,  and  the  neurotic  symptoms  dis- 

[146] 


SUBLIMATION  OF  EMOTIONS 

appear,  either  by  the  process  of  time  or 
through  the  ordinary  methods  of  reeduca- 
tion, the  unconscious  difficulties  and  conflicts 
which  produced  the  neurosis,  still  remain, 
and  are  liable  to  reappear  again  through 
future  upsetting  factors.  In  the  spontan- 
eous recovery  of  a  neurosis  (the  term  "re- 
covery" being  used  for  want  of  a  better 
word ) ,  several  processes  may  take  place,  viz. : 

1.  If  the  neurosis  was  an  escape  from  an 
unbearable  situation,  the  symptoms  gradu- 
ally simmer  down  or  a  conscious  process  of 
readjustment  or  compromise  takes  place. 

2.  The  neurosis  in  itself  or  its  nucleus  re- 
mains, but  becomes  "walled  off"  as  it  were, 
ready  to  break  out  at  any  future  time  under 
proper  conditions  of  fatigue,  worry,  anxiety 
or  emotional  upheaval. 

8.  There  may  develop  a  complete  under- 
standing of  the  neurotic  symptoms  without 
the  symptoms  disappearing,  in  fact  the  neu- 
rosis remains,  but  is  borne  with  a  more  phil- 

[147] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

osophical  attitude.  This  is  what  usually 
takes  place  after  methods  of  ordinary  reedu- 
cation, the  neurosis  remains,  but  its  symp- 
toms (fear  or  compulsive  ideas)  are  looked 
upon  from  an  entirely  different  angle. 

4.  A  spontaneous  readjustment  of  the  un- 
bearable situation  which  was  responsible  for 
the  neurosis,  may  take  place  in  the  uncon- 
scious.  In  these  cases  there  is  either  merely 
a  rearrangement  of  the  pathogenic  material 
or  it  has  been  forced  down  to  a  lower  level 
of  the  unconscious.  It  is  extremely  doubt- 
ful if  this  material  has  been  completely  ra- 
tionahzed  by  the  personality. 

As  an  example  of  this  latter  process,  a 
woman  whose  son  had  gone  to  war  was  ex- 
tremely troubled  by  a  recurrent  dream  in 
which  her  son's  military  uniform  disappeared 
little  by  little.  In  this  case,  as  the  dream 
demonstrates,  in  spite  of  her  conscious  patri- 
otism there  was  an  unconscious  protest 
against  war,  because,  as  she  stated  it,  the 

[148] 


SUBLIMATION  OF  EMOTIONS 

war  situation  had  shifted  from  an  impersonal 
interest  to  a  personal  one  "because  it  brings 
my  son  into  the  vortex  and  may  swallow 
him  up  in  it."  The  unconscious  symbolized 
this  process  in  the  dream  by  making  the  mih- 
tary  uniform  gradually  disappear.  An  in- 
teresting case  is  reported  by  Rivers  ^  which 
shows  in  a  very  clear  manner  how  spontan- 
eous readjustments  may  take  place  in  the 
unconscious.  An  officer  who  had  been  par- 
tially buried  by  an  explosion  and  apparently 
uninjured,  immediately  collapsed  when  he 
saw  the  remains  of  a  fellow  officer  who  had 
been  blown  to  pieces.  This  vision  haunted 
him  in  dreams  to  the  extent  that  he  would 
awaken  in  tlic  utmost  terror.  Finally  he 
became  afraid  to  go  to  sleep.  Under  the 
effect  of  psychotherapeutic  conversation,  the 
character  of  the  dreams  changed.  At  first 
he  saw  the  mangled  body  but  without  horror, 
then  in  a  dream  he  took  some  of  his  friend's 

1  W.    11.    H.    Rivers — "Th»-    Uei)ression    of    War    Experi- 
ence"—Lancet,  1918. 

[149] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

personal  belongings  to  send  to  his  relatives 
and  finally  he  dreamed  that  he  was  talking 
with  his  friend.  Then  the  insomnia  disap- 
peared. In  this  case  a  spontaneous  read- 
justment of  the  nature  of  a  wish  fulfilhnent 
took  place  in  the  unconscious. 

In  none  of  these  methods  of  "spontaneous 
recovery,"  is  there  a  genuine  recovery;  the 
conflict  which  lay  at  the  root  of  the  neurosis 
has  not  been  eliminated,  only  "walled  off," 
readjusted  or  resymbolized.  Psychoanaly- 
sis alone  can  cure  a  neurosis,  for  it  actually 
eliminates  the  unconscious  conflicts  which 
lie  at  the  basis  of  the  neurosis,  either  by 
raising  the  barbaric  wishes  to  a  higher  cul- 
tural level,  by  bringing  the  patient  into 
touch  with  reahty  again,  from  which  reality 
all  neurotics  withdraw,  or  by  teaching  the 
patient  to  utilize  the  energy  of  the  neurotic 
conflict  for  more  practical  purposes.  Psy- 
choanalysis is  like  an  archaeological  excava- 
tion, it  digs  out  the  buried  complexes  and 

[150] 


SUBLIMATION  OF  EMOTIONS 

then  they  disintegrate.  Through  the  draw- 
ing-out of  these  repressed  motives  and  im- 
pulses into  the  full  light  of  consciousness, 
through  facing  and  understanding  the  neu- 
rotic difficulties,  lies  the  ethical  value  of  psy- 
choanalysis. 

It  is  an  erroneous  idea  that  psychoanalysis 
consists  entirelv  of  sexuality  in  its  narrower 
sense  or  that  it  is  the  searching  after  porno- 
graphic thoughts  in  the  patient,  as  some  of 
its  myopic  critics  would  lead  us  to  believe. 
A  properly  conducted  psychoanalysis  refers 
less  to  sex  in  its  literal  sense,  than  does  the 
details  of  a  medical  history  in  a  physical  dis- 
order. On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  broad,  sex- 
ual conceptions  of  psychoanalysis,  embrac- 
ing all  liuman  emotions,  conflicts  and  desires, 
wliich  gives  psychoanalysis  its  high  ethical 
value.  Psychoanalysis  teaches  how  to  meet 
these  problems,  without  flying  from  them  on 
one  hand  in  repression,  or  by  embracing  and 
treasuring  them  in  unhealthy  fantasies.     A 

[1.51] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

successful  psychoanalysis  should  leave  the 
patient  completely  sublimated,  that  is,  it 
should  enable  him  to  utilize  the  unconscious 
energy  for  the  higher  purposes  of  life,  it 
should  teach  not  to  waste  this  energy  in 
fighting  the  neurosis. 

In  order  to  demonstrate  the  beneficial  re- 
sults of  psychoanalysis,  I  can  cite  the  case  of 
a  young  man,  who  several  years  ago  under- 
went a  psychoanalysis  for  a  neurosis  of  ex- 
treme severity.  As  a  result  of  treatment 
the  neurotic  symptoms  entirely  disappeared. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  Great  War,  he  en- 
listed, and  at  the  time,  I  felt  so  sure  of  the 
beneficial  results  of  psychoanalysis,  in  pro- 
viding a  thorough  reeducation  and  adjust- 
ment of  the  patient's  unconscious,  that  I  was 
able  to  predict  that  it  was  practically  im- 
possible for  him  to  develop  a  war  neurosis. 
This  for  the  reason  that  experience  has 
shown  that  this  was  one  of  the  types  of  per- 
sonahty  which  was  particularly  prone  to  de- 

[152] 


SUBLIMATION  OF  EMOTIONS 

velop  the  neurosis  popularly  known  as 
"shell  shock."  This  prediction  was  subse- 
quently verified,  for  he  went  through  the 
war  and  was  engaged  in  some  of  the  most 
severe  battles,  exposed  to  the  usual  fatigue 
and  anxieties  of  military  hfe,  without  the 
slightest  neurotic  symptoms  developing. 

In  the  unconscious,  however,  one  inter- 
esting symptom  developed  and  I  feel  sure 
that  it  was  the  psychoanalysis  alone  which 
prevented  the  symptom  from  projecting  it- 
self into  the  conscious  mental  life  and  thus 
producing  a  war  neurosis.  It  is  well  known 
that  a  large  majority  of  war  neuroses,  such 
as  the  cases  of  functional  tremor,  paralysis 
or  blindness,  are  merely  unconscious  methods 
of  escape  from  an  unbearable  situation. 
The  patient  had  a  dream  that  he  was  blind, 
but  in  the  dream  there  was  a  complete  under- 
standing and  correction  of  what  the  blind- 
ness meant,  namely, — a  relief  from  military 
necessity.     The   fact   that   tliis   remained  a 

[15a] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

dream,  that  the  unconscious  wish  was  im- 
mediately understood,  prevented  this  uncon- 
scious wish  from  converting  itself  into  the 
symptom  of  hysterical  blindness,  after  the 
manner  of  the  mechanism  of  the  conversion 
hysterias.  The  unconscious  had  been  so 
well  educated  by  the  previous  psychoanalysis, 
that  it  no  longer  took  the  infantile  satisfac- 
tion of  making  the  subject  escape  from 
what  he  consciously  felt  was  his  patriotic 
duty. 

At  the  Fifth  International  Congress  for 
Psychoanalysis  held  in  1918,  the  main  theme 
for  discussion  was  the  treatment  and  psycho- 
analysis of  the  War  neuroses,  popularly 
known  as  "shell  shock."  It  was  generally 
concurred  that  the  war  neuroses  were  merely 
manifestations  of  the  mechanisms  of  the  re- 
actions to  fright,  the  same  as  the  "fear  neu- 
roses" in  the  times  of  peace.  The  neuroses 
were  classified  as  anxiety  hysteria  and  re- 
pressed hysteria,  and  like  all  neuroses  were 

[154] 


SUBLIMATION  OF  EMOTIONS 

merely  methods  of  escape  from  an  unbear- 
able situation,  chosen  unconsciously.  As  in 
all  neuroses,  the  repression  had  failed  to 
solve  the  unconscious  conflict  and  conse- 
quently the  subject  could  escape  his  diffi- 
culties only  by  a  flight  into  disease. 

The  chief  criticism  which  has  been  directed 
towards  the  psychoanalytic  treatment  of  the 
neuroses  has  been  that  there  are  no  statistics 
available  showing  the  results  of  the  method, 
the  same  as  is  the  case  in  other  departments 
of  clinical  medicine.  It  appears  that  this 
skeptical  attitude  was  justified  and  it  was 
with  the  purpose  of  disarming  or  minimizing 
such  criticism,  that  a  statistical  study  was 
undertaken.^ 

Some  of  the  cases  were  severe,  others  mild, 
but    in    a    large    majority   of    these,    other 

1  Sec  my  jiapcr  "Snnio  StHtistiril  Ftesults  of  the  I'sycho- 
anulytic  Tn-atiiient  of  tin-  Vsychoncuroses"  —I'ni/rhnntialiffic 
licriew — A})ril,  1917.  Sinci-  this  paper  was  jiuhlished,  the 
psychoanalytic  treatment  has  b<en  carried  into  fields 
hitherto  thoiijrht  inacressiltle  and  has  frrcatly  widened  the 
therapeutic  application  of  psychoanalysis. 

[155] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

methods  of  treatment,  such  as  drugs,  rest, 
electricity,  explanation,  reeducation,  per- 
suasion and  the  various  ordinary  methods  of 
psychotherapy,  had  been  tried  in  vain. 
These  later  methods  deal  only  with  conscious 
processes  and  interests,  whereas  the  success 
of  psychoanalysis  is  dependent  on  the  fact 
that  it  deals  with  unconscious  mental  factors, 
which  form  the  basis  of  every  neurosis.  In 
certain  of  the  cases  treated  by  psychoanaly- 
sis, it  seems  justifiable  to  state,  considering 
the  inefficiency  of  other  psychotherapeutic 
methods,  that  the  neurosis  would  have  gone 
on  indefinitely,  thus  leaving  the  patient  in  a 
condition  of  life-long  misery  and  incapacity, 
had  not  psychoanalysis  been  utilized. 

In  the  sexual  neuroses,  such  as  homoero- 
tism,  psychoanalysis  was  the  only  method 
which  offered  any  hope  of  cure  or  even 
amelioration  of  the  condition.  Before  the 
days  of  psychoanalysis,  hypnosis  was  utilized 
in  an  attempt  to  cure  these  conditions,  but 

[156] 


SUBLIMATION  OF  EMOTIONS 

the  results  were  indifferent  and  any  improve- 
ment that  was  obtained  was  temporary. 
Failures  with  hypnosis  in  the  light  of  our 
present  knowledge  of  homoerotism,  were  to 
be  expected,  since  hypnotic  suggestion,  in- 
stead of  ])rcaking  down  the  resistances  which 
were  responsible  for  the  homoerotic  attitude, 
tended  to  increase  them/ 

In  a  large  number  of  cases,  psychoanalysis 
was  used  as  a  last  resort.  This  statement  is 
made  for  the  purpose  of  minimizing  the 
usual  criticism  that  the  case  would  have  re- 
covered without  psychoanalysis,  but  the  fact 
that  certain  cases  were  absolutely  unaffected 
by  other  therapeutic  procedures  but  recov- 
ered under  psychoanalysis,  is  sufficient  to 
invalidate  any  such  attitude.  Psychoanaly- 
sis is  a  rational  therapeutic  procedure  re- 
quiring a  specially  elaborated  tcchnicpie  and 

1  Tor  H  sound  disni^sion  of  why  hypnosis  fnils  in  these 
r/iscfl,  «ll  the  more  intrrcsling  because  it  was  written  in  pre- 
psychoannlytic  days  and  yet  psychoanalylioally  sound,  see 
Chapter  IV  of  Otto  Weininper's  "Sex  and  Churucter." 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

is  based  upon  sound  modern  psychodynamic 
interpretations  of  the  mental  mechanism  of 
the  neuroses. 

The  cases  to  which  psychoanalysis  is  par- 
ticularly applicable,  consist  principally  of 
the  severe  hysterias  (such  as  anxiety  hys- 
teria, conversion  hysteria  and  dissociation 
hysteria)  the  compulsion  neuroses,  mental 
torticollis,  retarded  depressions,  the  sexual 
neuroses  (various  types  of  sexual  inver- 
sion), stammering,  the  anxiety  neuroses,  and 
finally  certain  psychoses  such  as  paranoiac 
states  vs^ith  Hmited  delusion  formation,  mani- 
ac-depressive insanity  and  dementia  precox. 
It  appears  that  the  early  or  mild  cases  of  de- 
mentia prsecox  are  distinctly  amenable  to 
psychoanalysis,  as  at  this  stage  the  contents 
of  the  psychosis  are  readily  accessible  and 
furthermore  in  the  early  development  of  the 
disease,  the  mental  mechanism  is  strongly  al- 
lied to  hysteria/ 

ilsadore  H.  Coriat— "The  Treatment  of  Dementia  Prae- 

[158] 


SUBLIMATION  OF  EMOTIONS 

Of  coui-se,  recovery  from  a  neurosis  de- 
pends upon  the  transference  and  the  abihty 
of  the  analysis  ta  break  down  the  uncon- 
scious resistances  which  prolong  the  neu- 
rosis. Those  cases  which  do  not  progress 
to  recovery  and  in  which  only  an  ameliora- 
tion can  be  obtained,  the  retardation  is  due 
to  the  unconscious  resistance,  that  is,  a  desire 
on  the  part  of  the  patient  to  retain  the  neu- 
rosis, as  the  neurosis  acts  as  a  protector  or 
as  a  withdrawal  or  escape  from  an  unbear- 
able reality.  The  successful  progress  of  a 
case  is  best  determined  by  the  gradual  dis- 
appearance of  the  neurotic  symptoms  or  a 
change  in  the  character  of  the  dreams,  as  the 
sources  of  both  the  dreams  and  the  neurosis 
is  in  the  unconscious.  The  dreams,  to  the 
trained  psychoanalyst,  offer  the  best  objec- 
tive evidence  of  either  the  ])rogress  or  the 
retardation  of  the  case.     From  the  dream 

oox    by    Psychoanalysis— /ourna/    Abnormal    Psycholocjy— 
Dec,  1917. 

[1.59] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

can  be  determined  the  transferences  and  the 
patient's  attitude  toward  the  neurosis. 

Certain  well  selected  cases  of  dementia 
prsecox  should  be  given  the  benefit  of  a 
psychoanalysis  and  if  the  analysis  is  suc- 
cessful, the  social  reaction  of  the  patient 
improves.  When  we  consider  the  tendency 
of  dementia  precox  to  deterioration,  it  is 
worth  while  to  attempt  treatment  at  the 
psychological  level,  even  if  this  merely 
ameliorates  the  condition.  Of  course,  these 
attempts  are  based  upon  the  theory,  which 
is  now  gaining  credence  among  all  psychia- 
trists, that  dementia  praecox  is  a  psycho- 
genetic  and  not  an  organic  disorder.  In  de- 
mentia prsecox,  psychoanalysis  furnishes  in- 
formation which  it  is  essential  to  have,  in 
order  to  deal  with  the  patient  intelligently 
and  advise  according^.  It  illuminates  the 
factors  which  made  or  preceded  the  break- 
ing down  and  penetrates  into  the  nature  of 
the  complexes,  and  thus,  instead  of  approach- 

[160] 


SUBLIMATION  OF  EMOTIONS 

ing  the  problem  blindly,  furnishes  material 
for  the  intelligent  handling  of  the  patient. 
Psychoanalysis  will  orient  the  physician  in 
the  handling  of  the  patient's  social  relations, 
wliich  is  of  the  highest  importance  in  de- 
mentia pi-a^cox,  as  all  of  these  patients  tend 
to  be  shut-in  and  anti-social. 

The  best  results  of  psychoanalysis  are  ob- 
tained in  hysteria  and  the  sexual  neuroses. 
In  stammering,  too,  the  results  are  gratify- 
ing and  permanent,  as  stammering  is  a  form 
of  anxiety  neurosis  and  is  frequently  as- 
sociated witli  other  neurotic  symptoms. 
Speech  training  in  stammering  is  useless;  in 
fact,  it  may  make  a  stammerer  worse.  In 
stammering,  the  speech  defect  breaks  out 
after  the  individual  has  learned  to  talk, 
usually  after  an  emotional  episode  or  during 
a  critical  j)eriod  of  development.  The 
speech  defect  in  stammering  is  not  the  dis- 
ease, but  merely  a  symj)tom  of  the  under- 
lying neurotic  anxiety. 

[ifli] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

The  periodic  depressions  should  also  be 
psychoanalyzed,  not  during  the  period  of 
depression,  but  in  the  period  of  remission, 
in  an  attempt  to  eliminate  the  factors  which 
might  precipitate  further  attacks.  Recur- 
rences in  after  life  can  be  avoided.  In  men- 
tal torticollis  the  effects  of  psychoanalysis  in 
clearing  up  the  muscular  spasm  have  been 
most  gratifying,  particularly  in  those  cases 
where  the  usual  orthopedic  methods  have 
failed.  These  cases  present  tremendous 
difficulties  of  treatment,  because  the  roots 
of  the  neurosis  are  so  deeply  seated. 

In  the  paranoiac  states,  the  analysis  should 
proceed  along  the  line  of  both  the  conscious 
and  the  unconscious  settings  of  the  delusion 
formation,  that  is,  an  uncovering  of  the  act- 
ual circumstances  in  the  patient's  career 
which  lead  to  the  delusional  misinterpreta- 
tions. This  material  should  be  used  for  re- 
adjustment. In  epilepsy,  a  study  of  the  at- 
tack, and  its  precipitating  factors  in  connec- 

[162] 


SUBLIMATION  OF  ExMOTIONS 

tion  with  an  analysis  of  the  mental  make-up 
of  the  individual  has  furnished  methods  of 
psychoanalytic  approach  which  in  the  future 
may  be  found  very  beneficial  of  results. 

In  psychoanalysis  we  have  a  procedure 
which  is  based  upon  sound  conceptions  and 
it  consequently  must  remain  as  the  most 
effective  psychotherapeutic  method  known 
to  medicine.  The  method  is  particularly  ap- 
plicable to  those  psychoneuroses  which  have 
failed  to  improve  under  any  other  proce- 
dure and  it  is  the  only  method  which  pene- 
trates to  the  fundamental  disturbance  and  so 
effects  a  radical  cure.  Other  psychothera- 
peutic methods  merely  teach  or  train  the  in- 
dividual to  evade  his  difficulty.  Psychoan- 
alysis penetrates  to  the  basis  of  the  disturb- 
ance bv  uncovering  the  actual  unconscious 
source  of  the  neurosis. 


[168] 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Without  attempting  a  prophecy  in  the 
hteral  sense,  it  seems  worth  while,  in  the 
present  stage  of  advancement  of  psychoan- 
alysis, to  briefly  review  its  contemporary  ac- 
tivities and  attempt  to  ascertain  what  the 
future  offers  for  its  various  medical  and 
cultural  aspects.  As  a  therapeutic  proce- 
dure, psychoanalysis  is  not  only  compara- 
tively new  but  really  epoch  making  in  the 
help  it  furnishes  to  nervous  sufferers.  As 
such,  in  certain  well-selected  cases  of  neu- 
roses and  psychoneuroses,  it  is  immeasurably 
superior  to  the  so-called  rest  cure,  a  proce- 
dure whose  effects  in  neurological  therapeu- 
tics have  been  most  pernicious. 

Physicians  are  beginning  to  recognize  the 

[164] 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 

efficacy  of  psyclioanalysis  and  while  only  a 
few  have  mastered  the  technique,  yet  increas- 
ing numbers  of  cases  are  referred  to  those 
who  have  specialized  in  the  subject  in  order 
that  the  nervous  sufferer  may  be  given  the 
benefit  of  a  really  fundamental  type  of  treat- 
ment. It  seems  to  be  becoming  more  and 
more  evident  to  the  profession  that  the  tech- 
nique of  psychoanalysis  is  something  which 
must  be  learned  and  mastered  through  ex- 
perience, in  the  same  way  that  the  technique 
of  surgery  must  be  learned. 

The  technical  methods  of  psychoanalysis, 
as  in  all  fields  of  exact  science,  are  under- 
going modifications  and  improvements  in 
the  hands  of  physicians  working  in  this  field. 

A  great  deal  of  the  future  of  psychoanaly- 
sis depends  upon  improvement  in  its  tech- 
nique. The  results  of  tlie  method  can  best 
be  ascertained,  not  so  much  by  study  of  in- 
dividual cases,  as  by  careful  statistics  of  the 
effect  of  tlic  method  by  different  workers. 

[105] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

An  attempt  at  a  statistical  study  based  upon 
the  results  of  nearly  one  hundred  psycho- 
analyses has  already  been  made.^  The  re- 
lation of  psychoanalysis  to  ethics  and  the  ef- 
fect of  psychoanalytic  conceptions  and  the 
theories  of  repression  and  the  unconscious 
can  be  easily  seen  in  some  recent  philosoph- 
ical publications.  In  fact,  the  idea  that  in- 
trospection alone  is  able  to  reveal  all  the 
facts  of  consciousness,  as  maintained  by  some 
academic  and  experimental  psychologists,  is 
being  relegated  to  the  limbo  of  outworn 
ideas,  in  the  light  of  our  present  knowledge 
of  unconscious  thinking.  We  are  learning, 
too,  that  the  spontaneous  sublimation  of  a 
patient  should  be  encouraged  and  no  effort 
should  be  made  to  minimize  and  thwart  it. 
In  fact,  as  a  type  of  emotional  sublimation, 
religion,  using  the  term  in  its  broadest  sense 
without  reference  to  any  particular  dogma, 

1  Isador  H.  Coriat,  "Some  Statistical  Results  of  the 
Psychoanalytic  Treatment." — Psychoanalytic  Review,  April, 
1917. 

[166] 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 

offers  one  of  the  most  effective  and  satis- 
factory routes  for  the  sublimating  process. 

Pfister  ^  makes  the  following  statement 
concerning  the  value  of  sublimation  in  re- 
ligion. 

"Psychoanalysis  also  teaches  us  to  esti- 
mate the  value  of  religion  anew.  I  confess 
that  the  })eauty  and  the  blessing  of  a  healthy, 
ethically  pure  piety  have  only  become  over- 
whelmingly clear  to  me  from  the  investiga- 
tions here  described.  Religion,  in  favorable 
cases,  guards  the  libido  repelled  by  the  rude, 
avaricious  reality,  against  conversion  into 
hysterical  physical  symptoms  and  against 
introversion  into  anxiety,  melancholia,  ob- 
sessional phenomena,  etc. 

"Freud  speaks  of  the  extraordinary  in- 
crease in  neuroses  since  the  decline  of  re- 
ligion! I  would  much  rather  have  unfortu- 
nate people  whom  I  cannot  really  cure  by 
analysis,  in  an  extreme  sect  or  a  cloister  than 

iPnstcr,  "The  Psychoanalytic  Method"— 1917. 

[ir,7] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

in  a  neurosis.  Of  course  there  is  also  much 
neurotic  misery  in  cloisters  and  religious 
communities." 

As  as  example  of  this  sublimation  in  re- 
ligion, the  following  case  can  be  cited,  partly 
because  of  the  patient's  intelligent  apprecia- 
tion of  the  psychoanalytic  process  and  partly 
because  it  furnishes  an  insight  into  exactly 
how  psychoanalysis  works. 

The  following  was  written  by  an  intelli- 
gent woman,  a  sufferer  from  a  severe  com- 
pulsion neurosis  of  a  year's  duration.  Al- 
though her  father  was  a  clergyman  and  a 
college  professor  and  she  was  thus  brought 
up  in  her  childhood  in  a  religious  atmo- 
sphere, yet  the  severe  compulsions  which 
concerned  the  excreta  of  the  body  and  made 
themselves  manifest  by  obscene  thoughts, 
acted  as  a  barrier  to  her  religion,  since  she 
felt  that  her  neurosis  was  a  moral  fault  or  a 
moral  contamination.  Her  recent  dreams 
had  shown  an  unconscious  tendency  to  sub- 

[168] 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 

limate  through  religion  and  this  form  of 
sublimation  was  encouraged.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  analysis,  the  resistances  were 
strong,  but  these  resistances  were  gradually 
overcome  and  transferences  became  marked. 

In  a  recent  dream  she  seemed  to  be  going 
through  the  aisles  of  a  magnificent  cathedral 
to  a  door,  when  she  found  a  clergyman  of 
her  acquaintance  (an  old  lover  who  married 
some  one  else,  much  to  her  disappointment, 
and  consequently  she  never  married)  sitting 
at  his  study  table.  In  her  dream,  there  was 
an  emotion  of  deep  faith.  This  dream 
demonstrated  not  only  the  wish  to  sublimate 
in  religion,  but  likewise  a  transference  to  her 
physician  (who  was  really  the  "clerg\'man 
in  his  study"). 

In  this  dream  we  see  at  work  a  prepara- 
tory arranging  function  which  belongs  to  the 
work  of  adjustment  in  the  unconscious,  a 
sort  of  an  autosymbolic  presentation  of 
the  present  psychological  situation.     The  ac- 

[109] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

count  of  the  patient's  sublimation  in  religion 
follows  in  her  own  words. 

*'  'We  can  know  God  only  in  our  fellows, 
and  we  can  know  our  fellows  only  in  God.* 
This  was  the  teaching  put  into  words  by  one 
who  knew  him  well  of  a  Christian  minister, 
a  man  of  insight.  Now  as  I  begin  to  ex- 
perience the  healing  power  of  psychoanaly- 
sis, their  truth  comes  to  me  in  full  measure, 
brought  out  and  illuminated  by  the  process. 
For  the  relation  between  physician  and  pa- 
tient seem  to  have  much  in  common  with 
God's  dealings  with  man. 

"Thus  if  the  doctor  is  to  help  his  patient, 
it  is  of  the  first  importance  that  the  latter 
shall  trust  him  and  turn  to  him  in  entire 
confidence.  Accordingly  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  analysis  the  physician  strives  to 
inculcate  this  confidence,  and  to  make  the 
patient  feel  that  he  is  his  friend.  Little  by 
little  the  patient's  resistance  is  broken  down 
by  this  attracting  force  until  at  length  he 

[170] 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 

yields  without  reserve.  Is  not  this  human 
power  akin  to  the  constraining  power  of  the 
divine  love? 

"Again,  especially  in  the  early  stages  of 
the  analysis,  it  almost  seems  as  if  the  patient 
were  left  to  his  own  devices.  The  physician 
apparently  follows  his  lead.  The  patient 
must  think  and  speak  what  is  in  his  own 
mind  until  with  some  degree  of  definiteness 
he  realizes  his  own  need.  Not  until  then, 
when  the  patient  is  ready  to  receive  it,  does 
the  doctor  give  tlie  helpful  suggestion  the 
consoling  tliought.  Surely  this  is  God's  way 
of  dealing  with  the  world.  The  great  dis- 
covery is  made  only  when  necessity  has 
driven  men  to  search  for  it. 

"Best  of  all  is  the  way  in  which  the  experi- 
ence of  psychoanalysis  contributes  toward  a 
living  faith.  It  brings  home  to  us  the  deep 
need  of  the  human  soul  for  a  friendship  out- 
side itself.  The  nervous  invalid  turns  to  his 
physician   almost   as   a   child   turns   to   his 

[171] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

mother,  trusting  that  somehow  he  is  going  to 
be  helped.  He  learns  that  'confession  is 
good  for  the  soul,'  that  the  burden  is  light- 
ened by  sharing  it  with  a  friend.  At  first  it 
is  hard  to  reveal  his  own  weakness  to  another, 
but  as  he  goes  on  he  finds  that  he  is  always 
able  to  take  the  next  step.  He  realizes  that 
the  attitude  of  his  hearer  is  not  condemna- 
tion, but  sympathy,  and  that  with  the  true 
physician  the  depth  of  this  sympathy  is 
measured  only  by  his  patient's  needs. 

"Presently,  hoWever,  as  the  analysis  pro- 
ceeds, the  patient  is  brought  to  realize  that 
this  dependence  on  the  doctor  is  a  means,  not 
an  end ;  also  that  the  moral  obligation  to  lay 
bare  his  inmost  soul  to  a  fellowman  exists 
only  in  his  own  imagination.  He  knows 
now  that  it  is  the  part  of  the  full  grown 
man  or  woman  to  bear  his  own  burden, 
that  in  relation  to  his  fellows  each  hu- 
man being  stands  alone.     It  is  only  God 

[172] 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 

who  can  meet  man's  deepest  need,  the  expe- 
rience of  psychoanalysis  has  revitahzed  this 
famih'ar  thought.  And  this  is  the  thought 
tliat  makes  us  free. 

"The  patient  knows  that  he  is  free,  and 
he  feels  as  if  he  had  reached  this  conclusion 
by  himself.  Yet  when  he  reviews  the  prog- 
ress of  the  analysis,  and  takes  again  in  retro- 
spect each  successive  step,  he  realizes  that 
the  path  has  opened  for  him  to  w^alk  in,  that 
his  physician  has  led  the  way.  He  has  been 
thinking  the  doctor's  thoughts  after  him. 
Those  words  of  tlie  great  poet  come  to  his 
mind — 'There  is  a  power  that  shapes  our 
ends,  rough-hew  them  though  we  may.' 
He  knows  that  in  the  psychoanalysis  of  life, 
this  experience  is  a  stage  through  which  he 
has  been  led  by  the  great  analyzer  of  our 
souls. 

"Through  his  fellow  men  he  has  come  to 
know  God. 

[173] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

"Thus  we  learn  that  science  is  the  comple- 
ment of  religion,  that  psychology  no  less 
than  theology  leads  us  to  God." 

Psychoanalysis  can  do  much  too,  in  form- 
ulating on  the  basis  of  its  principles,  rational 
rules  for  nervous  and  mental  hygiene,  rather 
than  the  usual  loose  conceptions  of  will 
power,  etc.  In  fact  it  points  that  the  real 
prevention  and  mastery  of  neuroses  must 
come  from  within,  from  the  individual  analy- 
sis, rather  than  through  any  general  propa- 
ganda along  the  lines  of  mental  hygiene, 
since  the  latter  at  its  best  can  only  indicate 
collective  rules  which  cannot  be  adapted  to 
the  complexities  of  individual  minds. 

As  the  psychoanalytic  technique  becomes 
perfected,  we  may  expect  better  and  better 
results  through  the  treatment  of  such  con- 
ditions which  were  formerly  looked  upon  as 
hopeless,  such  as  well  selected  cases  of  de- 
mentia pra?cox  or  mild  paranoiac  states. 
Certainly,  the  treatment  of  sexual  inversion 

[174] 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 

is  far  more  hopeful  with  psychoanalysis  than 
with  the  older  methods  of  suggestion  and 
hypnosis. 

Wlien  psychoanalytic  principles  become 
known  to  educators  thev  niav  do  much  to 
prevent  the  development  of  a  neurosis  dur- 
ini?  the  critical  formative  period  of  a  child's 
life.  That  tendency  to  petty  stealing  or 
even  fantastic  lying  may  often  be  the  begin- 
ning of  an  hysterical  or  a  compulsion  neu- 
rosis; it  is  very  necessary  for  the  educator  to 
know,  in  order  to  refer  the  child  to  the 
proper  source,  where  the  faults  may  be  sci- 
entifically corrected  rather  than  thought- 
lessly punished.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
future  studies  of  juvenile  delinquency  and 
juvenile  faults  will  be  strongly  influenced  by 
psychoanalytic  conceptions,  that  is,  one  must 
look  for  deeper  motives  than  even  the  most 
I)ainstaking  anamnesis  affords.  In  cases 
showing  c()mj)ulsive  tendencies  to  stealing, 
the  so-called  klei)t()niania,  it  is  useless  to  ask 

[175] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

a  child  why  he  takes  certain  things,  since  the 
real  motive  is  unknown  to  him,  whereas  a 
short  psychoanalysis  may  often  clear  up  the 
situation  and  furnish  valuable  therapeutic 
hints. 

For  instance,  in  the  psychoanalysis  of  the 
case  of  a  boy  who  was  in  the  habit  of  pilfer- 
ing money  at  home  and  spending  it  on  nor- 
mal childish  desires,  the  manifestation  re- 
vealed a  strong  (Edipus  complex  and,  in 
addition,  it  demonstrated  that  the  boy  took 
the  money  from  his  mother,  never  from  his 
father,  as  he  knew  that  this  act  would  remain 
unpunished  by  his  mother  on  account  of  the 
strong  attachment  she  had  for  him.  The 
obvious  therapy  was  to  break  up  the  Oedi- 
pus complex  so  that  the  boy  would  have  as 
much  fear  of  stealing  from  his  mother  as 
from  his  father.  This  was  successfully  ac- 
complished. 

Clergymen,  too,  have  found  a  knowledge 
of  the  principles  of  the  psychoanalysis  of 

[176] 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 

great  value  in  their  religious  and  moral  ad- 
vise to  those  who  apply  to  them  for  consola- 
tion in  life's  battles  and  struggles. 

Adler's  approach  to  psychoanalysis  from 
the  organic  side,  interpreting  organic  inferi- 
ority as  the  basic  mechanism  of  what  Freud 
terms  the  conflict,  is  of  great  value  for  the 
future  development  of  psychoanalysis,  par- 
ticularly in  harmonizing  tlie  viewpoints  of 
these  who  are  either  inclined  to  functional 
or  to  physical  interpretations  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  neurosis. 

As  the  unconscious  is  the  historical  past 
of  the  individual  and  consists  therefore 
mainly  of  repressed  material,  so  from  the  un- 
conscious the  springs  of  character  take  their 
source.  The  character  traits  of  the  individ- 
ual are  not  inherited,  neither  are  they  the 
results  of  conscious  effort.  The  charac- 
ter of  a  person  is  made  up  of  original  re- 
pressed childhood  impulses  or  sublimations 
of  these.     All  character  formation  has  an 

[177] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

emotional  rather  than  an  intellectual  basis. 

To  a  certain  extent  one  of  the  future  tasks 
of  psychoanalysis,  will  not  only  be  the  treat- 
ment of  the  abnormal  manifestations  of  the 
neuroses,  but  in  addition,  certain  detrimental 
character  traits  in  normal  individuals  might 
be  immeasurably  benefited.  The  object  of 
psychoanalysis  in  all  these  conditions  is  to 
bring  the  unconscious  repressions  into  con- 
sciousness and  by  means  of  this,  the  conflict, 
which  produced  the  defect,  may  be  brought 
to  a  satisfactory  conclusion. 

As  an  example  of  what  may  be  accom- 
plished in  the  psychoanalysis  of  a  character 
trait,  which  was  detrimental  to  the  individ- 
ual, the  following  case  may  be  cited.  A 
young  man  complained  of  the  habit  of  pro- 
crastination which  had  been  slowly  develop- 
ing for  years  and  more  recently  had  pro- 
gressed to  such  an  extent  that  it  interfered 
with  his  work.  A  short  analysis  of  the  situ- 
ation disclosed  the  fact  that  the  roots  of  the 

[178] 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 

procrastination  arose  in  his  early  childhood. 
He  was  more  attached  to  his  father  than  his 
mother  and  it  was  under  the  former's  influ- 
ence that  the  habit  of  procrastination  arose. 
The  origin  of  this  was  unknown  to  him  un- 
til it  was  revealed  by  a  psychoanalysis,  but  it 
could  be  determined  that  it  was  produced  as 
conflict  and  was  really  a  projection  into  his 
adult  life  of  his  childhood  as  influenced  by 
the  image  of  his  father.     Finally  during  the 
course  of  the  analysis  he  had  a  dream  in 
which  it  appeared  that  his  father  was  dead 
and  the  undertaker  had  been  sent  for.     This 
dream  was  interesting  and  important,  as  his 
father  was  still  alive.     The  dream  symbol- 
ized the  death,  not  of  his  father,  but  what  his 
father  stood  for,  namely,  his  procrastination. 
In  other  words  it  symbolized  the  death  or 
disappearance  of  his  procrastination  in  the 
same  childhood  manner  that  the  unconscious 
always  symbolizes  the  death  of  a  member  of 
the  family.     After  this  dream  had  been  an- 

[179] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

alyzed  and  explained,  the  subject  became  en- 
tirely well. 

In  the  unconscious  is  concealed  emotional 
energy  which  is  of  great  importance  in  the 
sublimation  of  the  complexities  of  life. 
This  is  the  sublimation  which  represents  the 
spiritual  and  ethical  and  artistic  striving  of 
man  towards  greater  inner  perfection  and  to 
a  more  perfect  adjustment  with  the  world  of 
reality.  Psychoanalysis  teaches  the  individ- 
ual how  to  make  use  of  this  energy  for  a 
social  purpose  and  not  waste  it  in  mere  de- 
fense of  repressions  and  in  unhealthy  erotic 
fantasies.  Thus  the  future  of  psychoanaly- 
sis will  be  a  highly  moral  task  of  great  edu- 
cational value,  it  will  teach  the  individual 
and  through  the  individual  the  race,  that  the 
Utopia  comes  from  within  and  as  this  inner 
adjustment  to  reality  is  perfected,  mankind 
will  advance  to  higher  ideas  of  social  and 
ethical  justice.  For  then  no  longer  will  we 
resist  according  to  our  narrow  prejudices 

[180] 


PSYCHOxVNALYSIS 

and  traditions  or  by  flying  into  the  realm  of 
phantasmal  comfort,  but  will  react  as  beings 
who  are  freed  from  infantile  limitations  and 
of  childhood  reactions  to  adult  situations. 

Thus  Freud  has  given  the  world  a  new  in- 
strument for  explaining  the  unconscious 
mental  life  in  both  the  individual  and  in 
society.  The  methods  elaborated  are  of  the 
highest  value,  since  the  motives  of  all  men 
and  women,  the  healthy  as  well  as  the  nerv- 
ously ill,  are  determined  by  unconscious 
thouglits  of  which  they  are  unaware.  Men 
do  not  act  from  conscious  motives,  but  from 
unconscious  ideas,  of  which  the  conscious  mo- 
tives are  mere  rationahzations  or  excuses. 
Tliis  is  the  fundamental  principle  of  that 
new  psychology  elaborated  by  Freud,  which 
to-day  and  in  the  future,  will  explain  more 
and  more  the  real  forces  at  the  basis  of  hu- 
man conduct  and  human  motives. 

Psychoanalysis  is  beginning  to  found  a 
new  ethics  as  well  as  a  new  psychology,  a  new 

[IBlj 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

neurology  and  a  new  school  of  literary  criti- 
cism. It  bears  the  same  relation  in  all  its 
principles  to  the  human  mind,  and  to  the 
social  consciousness  as  biology  does  to  the 
organic  world.  In  other  words,  through 
psychoanalysis,  the  mind  is  dissected  and  the 
hidden  motives  and  sources  of  human  con- 
duct laid  bare. 

For  psychoanalysis  has  shown  us  our  true 
selves,  how  selfish  and  barbaric  and  revenge- 
ful we  all  are,  but  repressing  these  primitive 
instincts  into  our  unconscious  where  they 
only  appear  in  dreams  or  in  the  form  of  a 
nervous  malady.  Deeper  than  any  philos- 
ophy, for  most  philosophical  systems  repre- 
sent merelv  individual  attitudes  toward  the 
universe,  is  the  psychoanalytic  conception  of 
the  unconscious,  because  it  deals  with  the 
mind  of  all  mankind  and  with  all  the  aspects 
of  human  life.  However  different  men  may 
be  in  their  religious  or  social  or  political  be- 
liefs, there  is  "one  mind  common  to  all  indi- 

[182] 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 

vidual  men"  to  use  the  phrase  of  Emerson, 
and  this  universal  mind  is  the  unconscious. 
At  bottom,  the  psycholog}'  of  all  men  re- 
mains the  same,  however  different  their  cul- 
ture and  social  consciousness  may  be.  This 
fundamental  identity  of  the  human  race  is  in 
the  unconscious.  It  is  the  field  of  the  un- 
conscious which  Freud  has  made  peculiarly 
his  own,  in  its  analysis  for  the  hidden  mean- 
ings of  human  life. 


[183] 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  DEPTH   OF  THE   UNCONSCIOUS 

The  practice  of  psychoanalysis  has  dem- 
onstrated that  after  one  mass  of  repressed 
material  has  been  brought  to  light,  there  are 
frequently  opened  up  new  levels  of  this  re- 
pressed material,  all  of  which  demand  an  in- 
vestigation. Therefore  both  from  the  prac- 
tical and  theoretical  standpoint,  at  least  for 
the  purpose  of  definite  description,  the  un- 
conscious must  be  conceived,  not  as  a  hori- 
zontal plane,  but  possessing  a  stratigraphic 
structure. 

During  a  psj^choanalysis,  the  conscious 
material  is  first  investigated,  then  one 
reaches  the  level  of  the  foreconscious,  where 
the  minimum  of  resistance  and  repression 
has  taken  place.     As  the  analytic  excavation 

[184] 


DEPTH  OF  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

proceeds,  we  reach  the  region  of  the  uncon- 
scious, where  lower  and  lower  levels  are  en- 
countered until  we  come  to  the  oldest  por- 
tions of  the  human  psyche,  most  necessary 
for  the  preservation  of  the  race,  that  is,  the 
level  of  sexual  and  nutritional  craving. 
The  greatest  resistance  is  found  at  these  low- 
est levels,  for  the  human  mind  is  constantly 
on  the  defensive  lest  it  hetray  the  indelible 
stamp  of  its  lowly  origin. 

Anthropological  research  offers  the  best 
analogy  and  terminology  for  this  concep- 
tion. The  unconscious  is  thus  understood 
as  being  composed  of  mental  deposits  from 
the  past,  superimposed  on  each  other  and 
showing  the  development  of  the  psyche  from 
tlie  very  beginnings  of  the  human  race. 
The  study  of  these  unconscious  mental  de- 
posits has  been  aptly  termed  paleopsychol- 
ogy  l)y  Jelliffe.  This  is  a  useful,  and  schem- 
atic and  at  the  same  time  a  pragmatic  con- 
ception of  the  unconscious. 

[18.3] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

This  concept  traces  the  development  of 
the  individual  psyche  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  part  played  by  repression  in  the  produc- 
tion of  the  various  levels  of  the  unconscious. 
It  is  the  science  dealing  with  the  fossilized 
thought  forms  in  the  unconscious  of  man 
and  is  analogous  to  paleopathology,  the  sci- 
ence of  diseases  which  can  be  demonstrated 
in  human  and  animal  remains  of  ancient 
times,  such  as  of  the  ancient  Egyptians  or  of 
prehistoric  man  and  fossil  animals.^ 

According  to  Jelliffe— "The  historical 
past  of  the  psyche  is  in  the  region  of  the  un- 
conscious, and  this  region  can  only  be  recon- 
structed by  an  analysis,  an  uncovering  of  its 
contents,  much  as  the  history  of  the  earth's 
crust  can  only  be  known  through  excavation 
and  discovery  of  fossil  remains  in  the  strata. 
The  uncovering  of  the  contents  of  the  past  in 
the  unconscious,  may  by  analogy  be  termed 

iSee   "Studies   in   Paleopathology"    by    R.    L.    Moodie— 
Annals  of  Medical  History,  Vol.  I,  Nov.  4,  1917. 

[186] 


DEPTH  OF  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

paleopsycholog}'."  Every  psychoanalyst 
therefore  is  a  paleopsychologist,  and  the 
dreams  reveal  the  different  cultural  levels  of 
the  unconscious. 

These  fossilized  thought  forms  of  man- 
kind are  preserved  in  the  different  levels  of 
the  unconscious,  in  the  same  way  that  ana- 
tomical fossil  forms  are  preserved  in  the  dif- 
ferent strata  of  the  earth.  The  unconscious 
can,  in  the  hands  of  a  skilled  psychoanalyst, 
be  reconstructed  from  a  few  dream  frag- 
ments, in  somewhat  the  same  way  that  a 
skilled  anthropologist  can  reconstruct  a  par- 
ticular type  of  prehistoric  man  from  a  few 
fragments  of  his  skull.  Like  the  anthro- 
pologist, too,  the  psychoanalyst  by  means  of 
the  dream  material,  and  of  dreams  showing 
particular  symbolisms,  can  fairly  accurately 
orient  the  stratigraphic  level  of  this  dream 
in  the  unconscious.  For  the  unconscious  is 
composed,  not  of  one  mass  of  repressions, 
but   of   superimposed   repressions   accumu- 

[187] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

lated  layer  by  layer,  as  mankind  advanced 
in  his  cultural  development  from  prehistoric 
times  to  the  modern  period.  The  uncon- 
scious mental  life  was  born  when  repression 
began.  Without  repression  there  would  be 
no  unconscious. 

As  anthropologists  have  gone  backwards 
in  time  to  investigate  the  anatomical  struc- 
ture and  culture  of  prehistoric  man,  as  the 
geological  history  of  the  earth  has  been  ex- 
amined layer  by  layer,  so  must  the  entire 
mental  history  of  man  be  pushed  further  and 
further  back  into  the  remote  past.  The  best 
evidence  of  this  successive  growth  of  man's 
mental  history  is  found  in  the  unconscious 
and  not  the  conscious,  as  the  latter  is  only 
the  recent  mental  crust  of  the  cultural  his- 
tory of  mankind. 

To  understand  the  complete  human  mind 
we  must  dig,  by  means  of  the  technical  meth- 
ods of  psychoanalysis,  through  the  various 
levels  of  the  unconscious.     Psychoanalysis 

[188] 


DEPTH  OF  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

is  the  iiistriinient  that  delves  into  the  hidden 
depths  of  the  individual  psyche.  It  does 
not  interpret  surface  motives,  because  the 
real  motives  are  attached  to  the  primitive 
emotions  of  the  unconscious  mental  life.  As 
we  advance  into  adult  life,  the  unconscious 
becomes  deeper  and  deeper,  has  more  and 
more  levels,  although  in  the  child,  where  the 
unconscious  is  quite  shallow,  it  already  con- 
tains archaic  and  primitive  wishes  which  are 
fulfilled  with  very  little  resistance  and  prac- 
tically no  censorship.  The  infantile  or  child 
mind  does  produce  manifestations  in  adult 
life,  but  it  appears  in  a  less  primitive  form. 
The  child  is  slumbering  in  the  unconscious  of 
every  adult,  but  is  ready  to  awaken  at  any 
time,  ready  to  become  restless  and  anxious 
and  when  it  does  awaken,  then  dreams  or 
various  neurotic  manifestations  develop. 
In  the  adult  the  infantile  mind  is  deeply 
buried  in  the  dej)tli  of  the  unconscious. 
According  to  Freud,  from  the  beginning 

[189] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

of  life  there  already  exist  two  separate  sys- 
tems of  mental  activity  which  are  precursors 
or  forerunners  of  what  later  becomes  con- 
scious and  unconscious  thinking.  He  states 
"The  wish  manifested  in  the  dream  must  be 
an  infantile  one.  In  the  adult,  it  originates 
in  the  unconscious,  while  in  the  child,  where 
no  separation  or  censor  as  yet  exists  be- 
tween the  foreconscious  and  unconscious,  or 
where  these  are  only  in  process  of  formation, 
it  is  our  unfulfilled  and  unrepressed  wish 
from  the  waking  state."  For  instance,  the 
neurotic  fears  of  contamination  or  of  pointed 
objects,  as  they  appear  in  the  compulsion 
neuroses,  are  really  taboo  commands  from 
the  primitive  layers  of  the  unconscious. 
The  most  primitive  dreams  are  the  fossilized 
thoughts  or  structures  of  our  unconscious, 
deepest  and  farthest  removed  from  modern 
civilization. 

The  unconscious,  therefore,  is  the  key  to 
the  human  mind  and  in  it  can  be  found  all 

[190] 


DEPTH  OF  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

the  mental  traits  of  prehistoric  man.  The 
unconscious  is  primitive  as  it  is  composed  en- 
tirely of  repressed  material.  These  mental 
traits  have  disappeared  from  consciousness 
and  have  become  precipitated  into  the  un- 
conscious, because  of  the  ever-active  power  of 
repression  in  the  history  of  the  development 
of  civilization.  The  conscious  life  of  man 
has  taken  centuries  for  culture,  the  uncon- 
scious is  still  older  and  regresses  to  the  times 
of  our  remotest  ancestors.  In  fact,  the  un- 
conscious is  the  oldest  portion  of  the  human 
mind. 

In  mental  and  nervous  diseases  one  often 
sees  outcropping  symptoms,  symptomatic 
behavior,  dreams,  bits  of  thinking  which  are 
found  only  in  very  primitive  human  types 
which  come  from  the  deepest  strata  of  the 
unconscious  mental  life.  They  regress  to 
this  primitive  l)ehavior  and  mode  of  thinking 
because  they  have  the  material  for  such 
thought  and  behavior  repressed  into  the  low- 

[191] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

est  levels  of  the  unconscious.  This  for  the 
reason,  that  so  far  as  the  unconscious  is  con- 
cerned, time  does  not  exist,  because  in  an  in- 
stant a  dream  may  go  back  to  the  social  and 
mental  life  of  our  prehistoric  ancestors. 
Therefore  our  social  cravings  often  drag 
phantastic  symptoms  or  dream  symbols  from 
the  lowest  depths  of  the  unconscious.  "The 
man  of  prehistoric  times  lives  on,  unchanged, 
in  our  unconscious"  (Freud) . 

Before  the  development  of  psj''choanaly- 
sis,  Neitzsche  recognized  the  primitive  na- 
ture of  the  unconscious  as  reflected  in 
dreams.  He  writes,  "In  sleep  and  in  dreams 
one  passes  through  the  entire  curriculum  of 
primitive  mankind.  Even  as  to-day  we 
think  in  dreams,  mankind  thought  in  waking 
life  through  many  thousand  years.  In 
dreams  this  piece  of  ancient  humanity  works 
in  us.  The  dream  takes  us  back  to  remote 
conditions  of  human  culture  and  puts  in  our 
hands  the  means  of  understanding  it  better." 

[192] 


DEPTH  OF  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

If  the  mind  were  not  plastic,  if  it  were 
merely  like  the  fossilized  skeletal  remains  of 
animals  fomid  imbedded  in  stone  and  gravel, 
evolution  would  have  been  impossible.  But 
from  age  to  age  the  plastic  human  mind  has 
been  changing  and  in  its  integrations,  it  has 
become  possible  for  it  to  organize  the  highly 
complicated  modern  civilization.  As  Berg- 
son  states:  "Everywhere  but  in  man,  con- 
sciousness has  come  to  a  stand ;  in  man  alone 
it  has  kept  on  its  way." 

This  is  because  mind  is  plastic,  because  it 
pushes  its  primal  and  archaic  wishes  to  lower 
and  lower  levels  in  the  unconscious.  Conse- 
quently man  can  better  utilize  his  conscious 
energ}'  to  drive  forward  to  more  complex  in- 
tegrations and  to  those  higher  expressions  of 
the  repressed,  primitive  energy  whicli  is 
sublimated  into  social,  ethical  and  spiritual 
reconstruction.     In  the  words  of  Tennyson: 

"Men  may  rise  on  stepping  stones 
Of  their  dead  selves  to  higher  things." 

[193] 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  FAIRY  TALE   FROM   THE   UNCONSCIOUS 

It  has  been  shown,  that  the  psychology 
of  fairy  tales,  as  interpreted  by  psycho- 
analysis from  the  standpoint  of  origin  and 
symbolism,  bears  a  close  and  intim^ate  rela- 
tionship to  the  world  of  dreams.  Not  only 
are  fairy  tales  highly  symbolized  products 
and  like  dreams,  do  not  say  on  the  surface 
what  they  really  mean,  but  like  dreams  also, 
their  origin  is  in  the  very  depths  of  the  hu- 
man psyche.  In  every  fairy  tale,  to  quote 
from  a  previous  contribution:^  "We  move 
in  a  world  of  supernatural  activities,  witches 
and  ghosts,  exaggerated  and  heroic  deeds, 
even  at  times  emotionless  murders,  a 
mechanism  identical  with  dreaming." 

1  Isador   H.   Coriat— "The   Hysteria  of  Lady  Macbeth," 
second  edition,   1920. 

[194] 


A  FAIRY  TALE 

In  fairy  tales,  as  in  the  world  of  dreams, 
there  emerge  in  a  symbolized  form,  for  sym- 
bolism is  the  real  language  of  the  uncon- 
scious, the  thoughts  and  actions  which  are 
found  only  in  the  childhood  of  the  individual 
or  in  the  infancy  of  the  race.  As  stated  by 
Freud:  "The  research  into  these  con- 
cepts of  folk  psycholog}^  is  at  present  not  by 
any  means  concluded,  but  it  is  apparent 
everj'where,  from  myths,  for  instance,  that 
they  correspond  to  the  displaced  residues  of 
wish  phantasies  of  entire  nations,  the  dreams 
of  ages  of  young  humanity." 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  children  revel 
in  fairy  tales,  for  they  find  there  portrayed 
the  world  of  the  emergence  of  their  con- 
scious thoughts  and  wishes.  Adults  likewise 
delight  in  reading  fair}'  tales,  for  in  them 
the  adult  regresses  in  his  own  unconscious 
to  the  golden  age  of  childhood.  Because 
a  child's  wishes  are  fulfilled  ahnost  immedi- 
ately by  parents,  nurse  or  admiring  rela- 

[195] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

tions,  as  a  result  of  his  behavior,  his  mimic 
expressions  or  gestures,  the  child  lives  in 
that  happy  world  of  supreme  omnipotence 
which  forms  the  basis  and  the  wish-structure 
of  all  fairy  tales.  Out  of  this  omnipotence, 
this  thought  that  he  is  possessed  of  ilhmit- 
able  capacity  for  having  every  wish  fulfilled, 
the  child  actually  thinks  that  he  is  possessed, 
not  only  of  magic  thoughts  and  magic  words, 
but  also  of  magic  deeds.  As  the  child 
grows  older  and  comes  into  more  immediate 
contact  with  adult  reality  and  the  world 
about  him,  these  omnipotent  feelings  are 
repressed  in  the  unconscious,  to  reappear 
only  in  a  symbolized  form  in  dreams  or  in 
the  artistic  structure  of  fairy  tales.  All 
fairy  tales  portray  the  various  efforts  of  the 
adult  mind  to  become  reconciled  to  the  irra- 
tional and  immediately  fulfilled  wishes  of 
childhood  and  consequently  ail  fairy  tales 
have  the  childhood  feelings  of  omnipotence 
for  their  central  theme.     In  every  fairy  tale 

[196] 


A  FAIRY  TALE 

the  wish  motive  is  not  only  very  potent,  but 
also  very  omnipotent.  The  hero  like  the 
imaginative  mind  of  the  child  is  endowed 
with  magical  power;  space  and  time  no 
longer  exist  for  him ;  the  omnipotence  of  his 
thoughts  leads  to  the  omnipotence  of  his 
deeds. 

Consequently  in  every  fairy  tale  all  im- 
pediments of  space,  time,  poverty,  love, 
social  position,  are  swept  aside  in  the  multi- 
tudinous adventures  of  the  omnipotent  hero. 
Fairy  tales  are  variants  of  the  unconscious 
conflicts  concerning  the  so-called  family  ro- 
mance which  takes  place  in  the  psyche  of 
every  developing  chikl,  such  as  emotionless 
murders  and  the  various  symbolisms  and 
images  of  the  sex  motive. 

I  can  refer  particularly  in  this  connection 
to  certain  fairy  tales  of  the  Grimm  Brothers, 
such  as  "Frog  King,"  or  "Little  Snow 
White."  In  the  latter  talc  in  the  birth  of 
the  little  daughter  to  Snow  White  after  she 

[107] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

had  pricked  her  finger  and  drops  of  blood 
fell  from  it,  from  which  the  daughter  was 
born,  the  sexual  symbolism  and  wish  fulfill- 
ment are  very  clear,  likewise  the  condensa- 
tion of  the  name  and  physical  appearance  of 
Snow  White,  a  condensation  so  characteris- 
tic of  dreams. 

The  story  goes  on  to  relate:  "While  sew- 
ing, and  looking  every  moment  at  the  fall- 
ing snow,  she  (the  Queen)  pricked  her  fin- 
gen  and  three  drops  of  blood  fell  on  it.  She 
thought  the  red  color  looked  so  pretty  on  the 
white  snow  that  she  exclaimed — 'Ah!  if  only 
I  had  a  dear  little  child  as  white  as  snow, 
as  red  as  blood,  and  as  black  as  ebony!' 
Very  soon  after  this  she  really  had  a  little 
daughter,  who  was  as  white  as  snow,  for  she 
was  fair ;  as  red  as  blood,  for  her  cheeks  were 
rosy ;  and  as  black  as  ebony,  for  her  hair  and 
eyes  were  black,  and  she  was  called  Little 
Snow  White;  but  when  the  child  was  born 
the  Queen  died." 

[198] 


A  FAIRY  TALE 

As  stated  by  Riklin:^  "It  is  surprising 
how  great  a  role  the  sexual  plays  in  the 
fairy  tale  and  how  great  is  the  agreement 
of  the  sexual  symbolism  with  that  of  dreams 
and  psychopatholog}^  When  one  realizes 
and  admits,  however,  that  the  sexuality,  be- 
sides hunger  and  the  social  factors,  plays  a 
leading  role  in  life  and  constantly  influences 
our  thoughts  and  actions  from  youth  up,  then 
it  does  not  appear  in  any  way  surprising, 
although  the  fairy  tale  appears  to  us  in  a 
new,  less  child-hke  garb.  They  lose  on  that 
account  none  of  their  charm  and  power  of 
attraction." 

A  fairy  tale  then  is  a  day  dream  of  child- 
hood projected  into  a  literary  or  artistic 
form.  The  makers  of  fairy  tales  possessed 
to  a  high  degree  that  ability  to  carry  on  to 
adult  life,  without  any  great  amount  of  re- 
pression into  the  unconscious,  the  day 
dreams  gathered  from  their  own  childhood. 

1  Franz    Kiklin— "Wish    Fulfillment    and    SyiuboUsm    in 
Fairy  Talcs." 

[199] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

The  ordinary  individual  does  not  possess 
this  ability,  or  only  to  a  limited  extent  and 
then  it  appears  only  when  the  censorship 
of  repression  is  removed  or  is  at  its  lowest 
ebb,  namely,  in  sleep  and  in  the  world  of 
dreams. 

Very  rarely,  however,  during  the  course  of 
a  psychoanalysis,  does  one  meet  with  a 
dream  which  in  every  essential  and  detail  is 
a  fairy  tale.  Such  dreams  can  be  termed 
fairy  tales  from  the  unconscious.  When 
such  a  type  of  dream  occurs,  it  represents  a 
bursting  through  into  the  dream  hfe  of  all 
the  ideas  of  omnipotence  which  possessed 
childhood.  They  are  real  fairy  tales 
elaborated  in  the  form  of  night  dreams  di- 
rectly from  the  unconscious  of  the  dreamer, 
instead  of  the  childhood  unconscious  being 
tapped  by  the  creative  artist  in  his  day- 
dreams. In  addition  even  these  day-dreams 
may  show  the  omnipotent  ideas  which  are 
so  recurrent  in  fairy  tales.     Fairy  tales  rep- 

[200] 


A  FAIRY  TALE 

resent  that  period  of  childhood  which  has 
been  repressed,  the  period  of  magic  thoughts 
and  deeds. 

As  Ferenczi  so  well  states — ^  "The  im- 
petuous curiosity  to  know  everything,  that 
has  just  seduced  me  into  enchanted  vistas  of 
the  past,  and  led  me  to  bridge  over  the  yet 
unknowable  by  the  help  of  analysis,  brings 
me  back  to  the  starting  point  of  these  con- 
siderations :  to  the  theme  of  the  acme  and  de- 
cline of  the  feeling  of  impotence.  Science 
has  to  repudiate  this  illusion,  or  at  least  al- 
ways to  know  when  she  is  entering  the  field 
of  hypotheses  and  fancies.  In  fairy  tales, 
on  the  contrary,  phantasies  of  omnipotence 
are  and  remain  the  dominating  ones.  Just 
when  we  have  most  humbly  to  bow  before  the 
forces  of  nature,  the  fairy  tale  comes  to  our 
aid  with  its  typical  motives.  In  reality  we 
are  weak,  hence  the  heroes  of  fairy  tales  are 

1  S.  Fcrencii — "Contributions  to  Psychonnalysis" — Chap- 
ter V'lII  (Stui^ti  in  the  Developtuent  of  the  ScnM  of 
Reality). 

[201] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

strong  and  unconquerable:  in  our  activities 
and  our  knowledge  we  are  cramped  and 
hindered  by  time  and  space,  hence  in  fairy 
tales  one  is  immortal,  is  in  a  hundred  places 
at  the  same  time,  sees  into  the  future  and 
knows  the  past.  The  ponderousness,  the 
solidity,  and  the  impenetrabihty  of  matter, 
obstruct  our  way  every  moment ;  in  the  fairy 
tale,  however,  man  has  wings,  his  eye  pierces 
the  walls,  his  magic  wand  opens  all  doors. 
Reality  is  a  hard  fight  for  existence;  in  the 
fairy  tale  the  words  'httle  table  spread'  are 
sufficient.  A  man  may  live  in  perpetual 
fear  of  attacks  from  dangerous  beasts  and 
fierce  foes :  in  the  fairy  tale  a  magic  cap  en- 
ables every  transformation  and  makes  us  in- 
accessible. How  hard  it  is  in  reality  to  at- 
tain love  that  can  fulfill  all  our  wishes !  In 
the  fairy  tale  the  hero  is  irresistible  or  he 
bewitches  with  a  magic  gesture.  Thus  the 
fairy  tale  through  which  grown  ups  are  so 
fond  of  relating  to  their  children  their  own 

[202] 


A  FAIRY  TALE 

unfulfilled  and  repressed  wishes  really 
brings  the  perfected  situation  of  omnipo- 
tence to  a  last,  artistic  presentation." 

The  fairy  tale  is  then  really  an  imaginary 
compensation  for  feelings  of  inferiority  and 
mental  and  physical  limitations,  it  is  an  out- 
ward projection  in  artistic  garb  of  repressed 
wishes  carried  over  from  childhood.  These 
wishes  are  repressed,  because  as  adult  de- 
velopment proceeded,  such  wishes  came  into 
conflict  with  the  actual  world  of  reality  and 
could  only  be  imaginatively  realized  and  ful- 
filled in  the  form  of  an  artistic  creation. 
That  the  fairy  tale  is  like  a  dream  is  shown 
by  the  various  dream  mechanisms  which 
enter  into  its  construction,  such  as  the  oft 
recurring  motives  of  condensation  and  dis- 
placement, of  dramatization  and  secondary 
elaboration,  of  reenforcement  of  the  primary 
wish  by  a  series  of  heroic  deeds  and  finally  of 
the  struggle  with  obstacles,  such  as  so  often 
occurs  in  anxiety  dreams. 

[203] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

It  has  been  pointed  out  by  both  Freud  and 
Brill  that  fairy  tales  may  act  as  determi- 
nants or  instigators  not  only  of  dreams  and 
of  neurotic  symptoms,  but  likewise  play  a 
part  in  the  symbolic  manifestations  of  vari- 
ous mental  diseases,  particularly  dementia 
precox/  It  is  not,  however,  proposed  to 
discuss  this  aspect  here  beyond  relating  the 
fragment  of  a  dream  occurring  in  a  case  of 
anxiety  hysteria,  which  portrayed  in  a 
veiled  symbolic  manner  the  sadistic  Blue 
Beard  motive,  showing  that  the  unconscious 
of  the  ancient  folk  lore  maker  and  of  the 
modern  dreamer  were  identical. 

In  this  dream  she  started  to  explore  a 
room  which  she  had  discovered  at  the  fur- 
ther end  of  a  long  gallery.  The  door  was 
marked  "Holy  of  Holies"  in  small  gilt  let- 
ters just  under  the  key -hole  and  in  spite  of 
a   horrified    protest   from   her   mother   she 

1  A.  A.  Brill — "Fairy  Tales  as  Determinants  of  Dreams 
and  Neurotic  Symptoms" — New  York  M«di«al  Jo^tmnl — 
March  31,  1814. 

[204] 


A  FAIRY  TALE 

opened  the  door  and  found  in  the  room  only 
a  cedar  chest  containing  ceremonial  robes. 

In  this  case  there  occurs  the  motive  of  the 
locked  and  forbidden  room  which  is  so  often 
encountered  in  folk  lore,  as  in  the  story  of 
Blue  Beard  with  its  sadistic  episodes.  It 
symbolizes  a  forbidden  erotic  and  uncon- 
scious wish  carried  over  from  childhood  and 
reenforced  in  her  adult  life  by  the  inscrip- 
tion over  the  key  hole  in  the  manifest  con- 
tent of  the  dream. 

Such  an  interesting  and  apparently 
logical  jaini  tale  dream  is  the  following, 
taken  from  the  case  of  a  young  man  who 
suffered  from  an  anxiety  neurosis  associated 
with  a  conflict  of  strong  feelings  of  mental 
and  physical  inferiority.  A  searching 
analysis  failed  to  disclose,  even  in  his  early 
childhood,  that  the  patient  had  ever  read  or 
heard  of  a  similar  fairy  tale,  although  it 
must  be  admitted,  that  there  may  have 
been  a  childhood  amnesia  for  this  particular 

[205] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

point  which  could  not  be  overcome  even  by 
the  technical  methods  of  the  psychoanalysis. 
In  this  case,  there  was  no  literal  carrying 
over  into  adult  life  of  the  omnipotence  of 
fairy  tale  heroes,  it  was  rather  an  attempt  at 
compensation  for  the  personal  feelings  of 
inferiority,  using  the  same  unconscious 
symbolic  thinking  out  of  which  actual  fairy 
tales  are  created.  Of  course  the  dream  as 
related  is  only  its  manifest  content.  Its  in- 
terpretation and  symbolism  can  be  under- 
stood only  by  analyzing  the  web  of  the 
dream  thoughts,  the  latent  content  of  the 
dream. 

He  seemed  to  be  a  frozen  sea  or  large 
lake  and  his  country  was  at  war  with  another 
country.  The  enemy  army  was  encamping 
on  the  ice.  He  was  lying  wounded  under 
a  bridge,  dressed  not  in  a  soldier's  uniform, 
but  in  his  ordinary  civilian  clothes.  Some  of 
the  enemy  soldiers  were  at  a  distance  watch- 
ing him  to  see  if  he  were  dead  or  alive. 

[206] 


A  FAIRY  TALE 

First  he  made  a  slight  movement,  and  as  he 
did  so  he  felt  a  heavy  blow  on  the  head  from 

• 

the  butt  of  a  rifle.  In  the  dream  he  became 
unconscious  and  when  he  regained  conscious- 
ness again,  the  enemy  soldiers  had  disap- 
peared from  his  immediate  vicinity.  Then 
he  crawled  on  his  hands  and  knees  to  a  small 
cottage.  In  the  cottage  he  found  his 
mother,  who  bandaged  his  head.  Following 
this,  he  dressed  himself  in  a  bullet-proof  sol- 
dier's uniform,  which  seemed  inflated  with 
air  and  made  him  appear  large  and  bulky. 

He  then  crept  slowly  towards  the  enemy 
lines  and  there  found  the  King  of  his  coun- 
try. He  said  to  the  King  without  the  slight- 
est resistance  or  embarrassment — "On  which 
side  are  you?"  and  the  King  replied  that  he 
was  helping  the  enemy.  Then  he  became 
very  angrj'  with  the  King,  but  without  re- 
plying, he  walked  a  little  further  on  the  ice 
and  pulled  a  large  diamond  cutter  about 
three  feet  long  out  of  his  pocket.     Then  v/ith 

[207] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

lightning  like  rapidity  he  walked  across  the 
frozen  sea,  cutting  the  ice  with  the  diamond 
cutter.  The  enemy  soldiers  saw  him  and 
shot  at  him  and  although  he  was  struck  a 
number  of  times,  he  remained  unwounded 
on  account  of  his  bullet-proof  suit.  He  con- 
tinued cutting  the  ice,  the  enemy  still  pur- 
sued him  and  continued  to  fire,  but  he  man- 
aged to  out-distance  them  on  account  of  his 
extraordinary  ability  for  rapid  movements. 
As  the  pursuing  army  approached  they 
stepped  on  the  ice  which  he  had  cut,  fell  into 
the  sea  and  all  were  drowned. 

The  entire  dream  was  very  vivid  and  in  his 
capacity  as  hero  who  was  possessed  of  the 
ability  for  rapid  movement  and  who  was 
invulnerable  to  wounds  like  Achilles,  he 
completely  compensated  for  his  feelings  of 
inferiority.  He  felt,  too,  on  a  social  equal 
with  Kings  in  his  attitude  towards  the  King 
of  his  country,  although  the  King  at  the 
same  time,  as  so  often  occurs  in  psycho- 

[208] 


A  FAIRY  TALE 

analysis,  probably  represented  his  physician. 
In  this  case  the  dream  uncovered  a  trans- 
ference, here  symbolized  as  a  sort  of  wish 
or  striving  to  be  the  equal  of  his  physician. 
In  the  dream,  also,  there  occurred  sort  of  a 
rebirth  symbolization:  his  mother  bound  up 
his  wounds :  gave  him  life  again,  in  the  same 
way  she  once  gave  him  life  at  his  birth. 
This  is  really  an  (Edipus-saving  fantasy — 
a  symbolic  portrayal  of  birth  by  the  deed  of 
saving  life.  The  rebirth  is  also  symbolized 
by  the  crawling  into  the  cottage,  helpless, 
like  a  child ;  there  finding  his  mother,  nursed 
by  her  and  emerging  strong,  swift  and  in- 
vulnerable. The  symbolism  here  involved 
may  also  be  a  form  of  introversion  leading  to 
the  mother  imago,  because  in  introversion  he 
retreats  from  reality  and  thus  protects  his 
inferiority  feelings.  This  rebirth  sj^mboli- 
zation  enters  to  a  larger  extent  not  only  in 
the  tales  of  heroes,  but  also  in  religious  cere- 
monials and  various  religious  cults,  princi- 

[209] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

pally  to  the  pagan  deities.  The  phallic  mo- 
tive and  symbolism,  represented  by  the  ex- 
aggeration and  dream  over-determination  of 
the  diamond  cutter  is  significant.  It  is 
analogous  to  the  mystic  and  symbolic  phal- 
lic worship  of  the  ancients,  where  images  of 
a  movable  phallus  of  enormous  magnitude 
were  carried  in  certain  sacred  processions.^ 
It  demonstrates  how  the  unconscious  dream- 
work  may  utilize  the  same  primitive 
thought-symbolism  as  the  unconscious  of  so- 
ciety. Sexual  symbolism  is  very  complex 
and  varied  and  is  expressed  in  the  language 
of  the  unconscious  of  mankind  rather  than 
that  of  individual  men.  When  it  is  further- 
more stated  that  the  diamond  cutter  also  rep- 
resented the  powerful  omnipotent  wish-ful- 
filling fairy  wand,  the  importance  of  its  sym- 
bolism is  very  significant. 

Thus  the  dream  is  a  symbolized  fragment 
of  his  childhood  unconscious,  a  sort  of  a 

1  See  Richard  P.  Knight — "The  Symbolical  Language  of 
Ancient  Art  and  Mythology." 

[210] 


A  FAIRY  TALE 

break  with  reality  and  a  regression  to  the 
magic  fairy  land  of  his  cliildhood.  This  re- 
pressed feeling  of  omnipotence  had  long 
lain  dormant  in  the  unconscious  of  the 
dreamer  and  only  emerged  during  the  pro- 
cess of  psychoanalytic  treatment.  Its  value 
lay  in  the  contrast  shown  him  between  his 
conscious  feelings  of  inferiority  and  in  the 
latent  omnipotent  powers  which  slumbered 
in  his  unconscious.  Consequently  the  analy- 
sis released  the  repressed  omnipotence,  sym- 
l)olized  it  like  a  fairy  tale  and  made  it  avail- 
able for  the  first  time  to  the  dreamer  as  a 
corrective  to  his  character  formation  of  in- 
feriority. It  neutralized  and  finally  over- 
came the  inferiority  feeling  by  a  substitution 
of  his  imconscious  latent  powers  for  his  con- 
scious inferiority  complex. 

The  social  and  constructive  value  to  the 
dreamer  of  the  analysis  of  such  a  dream  is 
therefore  enormous,  enabling  him  to  utilize 
for  the   first   time   in   his   life  his   dormant 

[211] 


REPRESSED  EMOTIONS 

powers  of  overcoming  the  chief  obstacle  of 
his  life,  the  feeling  of  mental  and  physical  in- 
feriority. 

Such  dreams  although  absurd  and  fanciful 
in  the  surface,  are  of  great  value  in  under- 
standing the  development  of  character. 
When  analyzed  they  are  of  great  importance 
in  providing  a  release  for  dormant  activi- 
ties. Thus  psychoanalysis  in  removing  re- 
pressions, in  making  them  clear  and  mani- 
fest to  conscious  thinking  is  an  activator  of 
the  repressed  motives  and  wishes  of  human 
life,  and  although  human  emotions  cannot 
be  changed,  those  emotions  which  impede 
one  in  the  conflicts  with  the  reahties  of  hfe, 
can  be  better  understood,  better  combated 
and  consequently  better  utilized  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  through  psychoanaly- 
sis. This  dream  represents,  in  its  manifest 
content  at  least,  an  effort  to  solve  the  prob- 
lem of  inferiority  and  for  this  purpose  it 
descends  to  a  deeper  layer  of  the  uncon- 

[212] 


A  FAIRY  TALE 

scious,  that  portion  made  up  of  the  repressed 
omnipotent  wishes  of  childhood,  which  in 
adult  existence,  he  was  unable  to  fulfill  in  his 
wakins  life.     The  childhood  wishes  really 
form  the  motive  force  and  symbolism  of  the 
dream  and  it  is  in  this  deeper  stratum  tapped 
by  the  psychoanalytic  treatment,  that  the  so- 
lution of  the  dreamer's  characterological  de- 
fects lay.     When  the  dreamer  awoke,  the 
world  of  reality  again  enveloped  him  and  he 
became  the  inferior  human  being  once  more. 
The  value  of  the  analysis  of  this  particular 
dream  lay  in  the  fact  that  it  gave  the  dreamer 
an   insight   into  his  latent  possibilities  and 
prepared    him    for    readjustment    in    the 
struggle   for   existence.     The   work  of   the 
unconscious  as  revealed  in  the  analysis  of  the 
dream    has    released    to    consciousness,    al- 
though only  in  the  form  of  dream  wishes,  the 
energ}'  and   knowledge  necessary   to  over- 
come the  feeling  of  uiferiority. 

[213] 


f^O — , 


3p'^ 


^A      000  263  939 


CENTRAL  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
University  of  California,  Saji  Diego 

DATE  DUE 

.r^AR  31  1977 

!^AR  1^3  HtCU 

¥■  ■  1  ■  r      ^     r    '  7"^' 

CI  39 

UCSD  Libr. 

u>-. 


l'J-H"R  : 


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